BASS VOTED 'YES' FOR GROW BUSTERS

To the editor:

With an inflammatory issue like marijuana, it is important that the
Courier get the facts straight ("Marijuana motion a bust," Aug. 18).

Unfortunately, the city council minutes that initially appeared on the
city's web site were in error, so your reporter got mistaken
information.

Your article began with NPA Coun. Gordon Price saying that a staff
report on options for the legalization of marijuana production would
be a waste of the public's money. Yet the War on Drugs is a losing
cause.

Consider that the city now spends $925,682 on the annual budget for
GrowBusters (counting both city hall and police dollars). Given that
in two years Grow Busters has not touched 90 per cent of the estimated
10,000 grow-operations in Vancouver, that police have charged 35 per
cent of the 1,114 raided growers, and that only a handful have been
convicted, why would city council not spend staff time and money
evaluating alternatives?

I believe Grow Busters, though not a solution in the long run, is
necessary in the short run because illegal grow-ops can be dangerous.
They often pirate large amounts of electrical current, leading to
fires and posing risk of electrocution. Children live, and are at
risk, in 37 per cent of the buildings that house grow-ops. Grow-ops
sometimes attract and support organized crime.

The article states that "Bass and his fellow COPE councillor Tim Louis
registered negative votes" against extending Grow Busters. When your
reporter called, I told him that that I did not remember voting
against Grow Busters. At that point, neither council minutes nor staff
from the city clerk's office were available to me to verify how I
voted. Council minutes now available on the web show:

1) that I voted to extend Grow Busters

2) that all of council voted for my motion "to ask the provincial
government to request that the federal crown share with the City of
Vancouver a portion of the seized proceeds obtained from all criminal
activities in the City of Vancouver, including cash seized in
marijuana grow operation raids"

3) that the NPA voted as a block against my motion "that staff be
requested to report back on options for the legalization of marijuana
production, specifically in regard to safely controlling production,
experiences elsewhere and economic implications"

Coun. Price says he did not get elected to change the country's drug
laws. Here he seems to travel a different path than Mayor Owen, whose
bold approach to street drugs has already captured federal interest
and will lead to changes in federal laws.

Fred Bass, City councillor