GROW-OPS LEAVING TOWN

The number of former Vancouver marijuana growers turning up in Ontario is
soaring, according to a community policing centre that monitors the
Vancouver Police Department's Grow Busters operation.

Chris Taulu, coordinator of the Collingwood Community Policing Centre, said
she started getting phone calls from Ontario municipalities-including
Kitchener/Waterloo and Windsor-last summer.

"They knew about our community involvement in the Grow Busters project and
they were asking us what we are doing right to get them out of the
neighbourhood," said Taulu. "They are finding more grow-ops and those
grow-ops are often being started or looked after by people who have left
Vancouver."

While Grow Busters may be forcing growers out of the city, operators aren't
doing time for their crimes. In most of the 22 cases followed by the
Collingwood Community Policing Centre, only four-to six-month conditional
sentences were handed out, meaning the grower did no jail time.

"The only good thing is they are being driven to Ontario," said Taulu,
noting another draw for growers is the fact that a pound of pot goes for
$10,000 in New York compared to $7,000 in California.

The Collingwood Community Policing Centre has been involved with the Grow
Busters operation since its inception in late 1999.

Insp. Val Harrison, who is in charge of District 3, said Collingwood is in
the heart of the city's pot growing territory because of the number of
rental homes available.

"The centre was getting people coming in all the time complaining about
suspected grow-ops in their neighbourhood. They told us about it and that
became the impetus to establish a force dedicated to closing down
grow-ops," said Harrison.

Between July, 2000-when Grow Busters officially formed-and January of this
year, the team shut down about 650 grow-ops. But there are still believed
to be 4,000 left throughout the city. Police have a list of 600 possible
grow-ops that are being investigated.

Harrison confirmed that only a small percentage of the grow-ops shut down
result in criminal charges. "We seize the equipment and the plants but we
can't take all the cases to court because it's often too time-consuming to
link the person found at the scene to the crime."

Since July, 2001, Grow Busters has seized $80 million worth of pot, with
almost all the busts occurring in rental properties.