MAKE THAT A 'CANADIAN GROW'

It was eminently predictable that sooner or later there'd be a Guelph
police presentation on the subject of large marijuana growing operations.

These operations have been around for some time. They've made the news, and
almost every week there's a police blitz on a house-growing operation
somewhere in the area.

Plants are hauled out and destroyed. Grow-lights are switched off. The
operators are arrested and taken to court and the standard devices by which
hydro-electric meters are bypassed (and power stolen) are dismantled.

After half a decade of these search-and-destroy missions, police would be
dull indeed if they failed to perceive a few standard patterns. They'd be
pretty blind also not to notice that many (but not all) of the growers they
catch in the act happen to bear names and faces that are more common to
certain East Asian nations than they are to most Canadian communities.

Given that these grow-operations are highly illegal -- and a trifle
dangerous besides -- Guelph police have good reason to try putting two and
two together to see what the math produces. That's their job.

Still, it was insensitive, misleading and unnecessarily offensive of the
brass to compile their intelligence and bill it as an "Asian Grow
Presentation."

Of course, there is an excuse, for the attempt, as Guelph Police Chief Rob
Davis explained, is to draw attention to the strong probability that the
common backers of these grow operations are not Mafia-types. Neither are
they biker gang toughs. They're linked to East Asian crime organizations.

Still, the proliferation of these marijuana-growing operations cannot be
realistically considered to be an "Asian grow" problem. Not at all. It is a
full-fledged, genuine Canadian problem. Many of the criminal growers
involved may happen to be of Asian descent, but they're doing their growing
in and around Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The chances are they're also
marketing their crops locally. When they do, you can bet that they're
distributing them to a broad cross-section of the population -- one that
includes people of all skin hues, language groups and cultural backgrounds.
Without the existence of a sizeable ready market for pot, there would
likely not be marijuana-growing production machine, and the big boys behind
it would soon be out of business.

So spare us the "Asian" grow bit. Pot-growing (and pot-smoking) knows no
cultural bounds. It is every bit as Canadian as Kentucky Fried Chicken.
That is to say, the hard labour and the real risks are being carried on in
an establishment in your community. The meaningful profits are probably
flowing elsewhere.