'SNITCH' LINE BUSTS DRUG DEALERS

20 Years Ago Police Worried That Only People With Grudges Would Call Crime
Stoppers

There is more pot in Hamilton than ever before.

There are more grow operations. The quality of the weed is better. It's
worth more on the street.

And more of it is being seized by police, thanks in large part to Crime
Stoppers.

Last year anonymous tips to the Crime Stoppers hotline helped Hamilton
police seize four times more marijuana than the year before.

By the end of 2002, $9.6 million worth of drugs -- mostly pot -- had been
taken off the streets because of calls to Crime Stoppers.

Off the streets and out of the basements, bedrooms, attics and living rooms
where residential pot-grow operations flourish.

There isn't a neighbourhood in the city where pot isn't being grown, police
say.

In December alone, drugs totalling a whopping $2.3 million were seized
after police acted on Crime Stoppers tips. Huge grow operations helped make
that a banner month.

On Jerseyville Road in Ancaster, a $130,000 operation was busted. On Stone
Church Road West in Hamilton another $726,000 worth of marijuana was
seized. On Garden Avenue in Ancaster an $836,000 operation was shut down
and at a home on Highway 5, $634,000 in pot plants were found.

Last February, the month with the second largest total, drugs worth $2
million were seized.

All across Ontario, hydroponic pot operations are on the rise, says
Detective Sergeant Rick Wills, head of the vice and drugs unit.

Organized crime is cashing in on the crop by replacing mom-and-pop
operations of the past with networks of sophisticated and highly profitable
pot-producing and distributing businesses.

As well, new technology and refined growing practices are helping to grow
bigger, better plants.

Police busted 99 grow operations in this city last year, compared to 56 the
year before. That increase is the primary reason why the value of seized
drugs quadrupled in a year.

But not only are there more operations, each one is also producing a higher
yield. "The average number of plants per grow went way up in 2002," says Wills.

Growers are refining their techniques so the quality of the pot has
increased so much the street value of a single marijuana plant has jumped
from $600 in 2001 to $1,000 in 2002, says Wills. The inflated price has
also helped raise the total value of drugs seized last year.

The final reason the numbers have grown four-fold is that there are more
successful tips being called in.

The non-profit organization, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary in
Hamilton, works hand-in-hand with the vice and drugs unit to get
information, check it out and make seizures and arrests.

If you've ever wondered if the Crime Stoppers program was effective in
fighting crime, consider this: Last year, for every $1 the program paid out
in reward money, $190 worth of drugs was taken off the streets.

Drugs are the No. 1 reason people call Crime Stoppers.

About 70 per cent of the tips that come in are about marijuana grow houses,
crack houses and dealers, says Detective Glenn Bullock, who is releasing
Crime Stoppers year-end statistics today. The vice and drugs unit says half
its seizures come as a direct result of Crime Stoppers tips.

Members of the public have become more educated about grow houses in recent
years and are better at detecting them, Bullock says. They know that
windows covered in dark plastic or heavy curtains may be clues. So is heavy
condensation on windows and the sound of electrical humming or trickling water.

Unexplained power surges or brownouts in the neighbourhood and an unusual
pattern of visitors coming and going might also be signs of a grow operation.

Sharp-eyed people, often fed up with the crimes going on in their own
neighbourhoods, regularly call Crime Stoppers to report what they've seen.

When Crime Stoppers started here in 1983, many Hamilton detectives resisted
the new tip-gathering program.

They feared they would be burdened with tips from people bearing grudges
against their neighbours.

Sure, that happens, says Bullock. Many tipsters have agendas. Some are
themselves drug dealers who are trying to put their competition out of
business.

But if their tip leads to the seizure of drugs, the closure of a grow
operation or the arrest of a dealer, then the tip has been successful,
regardless of where it came from.

And now, two decades after the skepticism, Crime Stoppers is the most
valuable crime-fighting tool the drugs and vice unit has.