GROW-OP INDUSTRY 'STAGGERING' - COPS

Overshadows Call To Decriminalize Pot

TORONTO - Calls on Ottawa to lessen the criminal consequences of drug
use were all but eclipsed yesterday by harrowing law-enforcement tales
about Canada's "staggering" hydroponic marijuana industry.

Toronto police Chief Julian Fantino was among several Ontario police
officials to tell a House of Commons committee on non-medical drugs
just how bad Canada's pot problem has become.

"The sheer volume of sites is a significant drain on police
resources," Fantino told the committee during hearings in Toronto.

"Hydroponic marijuana prosecutions result in sentences in the range of
six months to a year; hardly a deterrent to the organized criminal
groups that can bring in $400,000 a year from 400 plants."

Indeed, the sale of Canadian marijuana - now so potent it can no
longer be considered a "soft drug" - is likely financing heroin and
ecstacy operations and other criminal enterprises, he added.

And it's all because Canada lacks a coherent, co-ordinated, national
drug strategy, something Fantino said he's been advocating over the
course of his 33-year career.

"It's the dilemma we're all facing; we're all over the map," Fantino
told committee vice-chairman and Canadian Alliance MP Randy White.
"The drug strategy in this country, as we know it, is a great
philosophical document, but that's all it is; it doesn't really
empower us or enable us to obtain any results."

Meanwhile, homegrown weed is fast becoming one of Canada's largest and
fastest-growing industries, said Waterloo police Supt. Bill Stevens.

"The profusion of marijuana growing operations across Canada is
staggering," Stevens said. "In the province of Ontario, it's a
billion-dollar industry, and getting bigger; in British Columbia, it
is a $6-billion empire which is surpassing the lumber industry."

Operation Greensweep, last month's simultaneous, national single-day
crackdown on grow houses across Canada, netted some $47 million worth
of plants and resulted in 136 arrests and 190 charges, Stevens said.

Some 28 children discovered in the houses - which, between the
haphazard electrical wiring and the booby traps set to discourage
trespassers and rival growers, are largely death traps - were turned
over to child-welfare authorities, he added.

"I submit that we have only scratched the surface," said
Stevens.