THE MEDIA
DEBATE 2004
THE ISSUE: CANNABIS IN CANADA
ONE SIDE - ILLEGAL UNREGULATED MARKET
PREFERRED
The War on Cannabis Consumers
The
Players:
Snitch
Society ..
today, we live in a society were police see absolutely nothing wrong
with trying to enlist letter
carriers and meter readers to snoop on Calgary residences -- the very
homes they are assigned to
provide a service to -- in the campaign to detect illegal marijuana
grow operations
- Police
Need Publics Help To Clamp Down On Pot Grow The 56-page Green Tide report reveals that between 2000 and 2002 the number of operations increased by 250 per cent. Not only that, grow houses produced and housed at least 1.2 million kilograms of marketable pot and related products generating $12.7-billion in revenue; stats show 15,000 grow houses were in operation and 1.2 million plants were seized in 2002.
- Help Locating Pot Is Requested Police Want Citizens' Help Putting A Dent In The Pot Industry. Crime Stoppers is looking for tips about outdoor marijuana crops.
- Police Asking Hikers For Help In Spotting Marijuana Fields Anyone who finds marijuana plants growing outdoors should not attempt to remove them, but should note the location and estimate the number of plants and average height. It is important to record the location by GPS co-ordinates, compass bearing or nearby landmarks and note any vehicles parked in the area and record licence numbers.
- Police Offer Tips On Spotting Outdoor Marijuana Crops The plants are only in their early stages of growth this time of year and hold no real value this early in the season. Members of the community are asked to help Police nip this problem in the "bud."
- Police Ask For Help In Fighting Grow Ops This is not strictly a police matter," "It's a community issue."
- RCMP Go Underground In Search For Pot Growers RCMP spent about three hours in the old mine. They didn't find evidence of a grow-op, but say that doesn't mean one wasn't there at some point.
- Search on for Pot Growers "It doesn't matter where you are. As soon as somebody is removed from the scene, somebody else takes their place right away... Every little bit certainly helps us, but drugs are still readily available."
- Join Monte's Power Rangers Hey kids! Be the first on your block to bust a neighbourhood pot grow-op!
- Kwinter's Marijuana Mistake Has Aides Rushing To Clear Air
- Hydro To Root Out Grow Ops Hydro officials will soon
be able to cut off power to homes without warning if they suspect an illegal marijuana grow operation,police need proof to obtain a warrant to enter a home. "And it's really difficult to get a warrant when you can't tell them what's in there," Building inspectors, who are already entitled to enter structures to investigate potential safety risks, will be called in to examine suspicious homes and report any criminality
they find. The minister said banks will begin specifying in mortgage documents that the whole amount becomes due if a grow operation is discovered. Insurance companies will also void coverage for grow ops.
- Firefighters Will Sniff Out Pot Operations Forget the police. The new frontier of pot busting in Abbotsford comes in the form of firefighters, building inspectors and bylaw officers.
- Teachers Asked To Watch For Grow-Op Signs "We don't obviously want a situation where teachers are questioning kids to try to detect a grow-op...But they just need to keep their ears open and use intuition and if things don't seem right, maybe it's time to start asking some extra questions."
- Meter Readers To Spot Pot Drug unit investigators are looking to enlist letter carriers and meter readers in their fight against grow-ops. Drug unit officers are already schooling 4,500 local realtors on how to recognize pot farms. The class that is now mandatory for city realtors.
- CUPE Wants To Set Up Crime-Watch Program Involving Municipal Workers Local civic workers want to become extra eyes and ears for the police."While we are out in the community
we'd be trained what to look for, things such as grow-ops, [ Sellouts! ]
- Police Want Business To Help Fight Grow Houses "There's a need for leaders in the real estate, insurance and banking sectors to work with police, hydro companies and government officials,"
- Grow-Op
Statement Speaks For Whole City The twist with the public safety
committee's plan is that they want the police to read in statements on behalf of the
community as a whole. [Don't speak on my behalf!]
- Group Aims To Snuff Out Pot Grow
Operations Calgarians [ read: cops, business] are
sick and tired of criminals setting up marijuana grow operations too close to home, say those who took an important step in eliminating them last night. "This is a problem bigger than any single agency can solve and it's one that's become a public health and safety issue," said Calgary police drug unit Staff Sgt. Trevor Daroux.About 40 people representing local financial institutions, businesses and police formed the Stop Marijuana Grow Operation steering committee.
- Grow-ops Creating Headache For Business Real estate agents, who may unwittingly sell a former grow-op or sell to someone wanting to build one, may have the most at stake. ''A realtor is the one stuck in the middle''
- Committee Wants Those Who Downplay Marijuana To Get Off The Pot The Community Alcohol and Drug Action Committee ( CADAC ) invites the community to another free workshop called: It's not JUST
Pot! Facts About Marijuana and Other Drugs. Score one for propaganda: Just Pot Meeting Stirs Up Controversy
- Citizens Tipping Off Police On Marijuana Grow-ops 'Frankly, I think they're fed up,' constable says
- Drug Laws Blamed For Low Crime Stoppers Numbers Crime Stoppers officials believe inconsistencies with Canada's drug laws likely played a part in reducing the number of anonymous drug-related
tips in 2003.
- Marijuana grow-op task force in response to outrage: Mayor
The Incentives:
- Police
Chief Requests More Officers As Guns And Grow-Ops Multiply Police Chief Julian Fantino opened the defence of his $691-million budget request with a spirited barrage of statistical propaganda, citing everything from the marijuana-growing growth industry
- Province Vows New Efforts Against Pot Growers, Child Porn Ontario's top lawmakers tell top cops fight to be stepped up; more officers to be hired
- RCMP's
New Team Will Tackle Grow Ops We need to thank the municipalities for allotting the six
positions for the team,"
- Police
Cracking Down On Pot Labs A special team of 30 Peel police officers will be sweeping the city,
attacking the growing problem
of pot labs set up in local houses.
- Ontario
To Spend $30m To Hire
Police Ontario's cash-strapped Liberal government says it will
spend $30 million a year over
three years to hire 1,000 more police officers despite statistics
indicating there is no increase
in provincial crime rates.
- Bill
Would Help Police To Seize
Proceeds Of Crime Police and prosecutors may soon get a new tool in
the fight against organized
crime, making it easier to seize everything from cars to homes of those
convicted of gangsterism.A
new bill tabled
- Easing
Pot Rules May Hike Costs Of
Policing: RCMP
The Arguments:
- It's
For Your Own Protection So
in case you didn't think about it before, it's illegal for a
reason... (sic) you're
protection.
- Judges
Urged To Get Tough On Grow Ops Canada's new pot reform laws will
toughen penalties to combat
dangerous marijuana grow ops -- but judges also need a lesson about the
gravity of the crime, said
Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan. ..."We need to help judges
understand how absolutely
serious this is -- the social costs, the economic costs and quite
truthfully, the danger to the
lives and safety of first responders when they go into these houses,
This is not a crime that
should be taken lightly. This is not a victimless crime."
- Drug
Grow Houses Cost Public
Millions: Report Marijuana operations cost the public more
than $100 million a year and
growing, according to Ontario's chiefs of police.Green Tide: A report
on the devastating effects of
Marihuana Grow Ops in Ontario
- Grow-Ops
Pose 'Serious Threat' To
Public Safety Marijuana Still Illegal, Users 'Pretty Stupid,'
Mclellan Says The federal
government is committed to eradicating marijuana grow operations and
people who smoke marijuana are
"stupid," Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan said yesterday."I see
grow-ops as one of the single
biggest problems we face in our communities -- they do represent a
serious threat to public
safety,"
- Ottawa's
Pot Stand Hurts War On
Drugs: Police Local efforts to curb illegal drug use are being
complicated by the federal
government's mixed message on marijuana, a high-ranking Edmonton police
officer said Friday.
- Decriminalization
Will Increase
Problems With Pot - Police Chief Relaxing Canadian laws on pot
possession will lead to more
social problems, Medicine Hat's police chief said.
- Money
Goes Up in Toke Pot
Grow-Ops Cost Ontarians $260m From 2000 to 2003 That's a little under
$60 for every household in
the province. Have you ever paid for a bit of homegrown Ontario
pot? No? Draw the blinds,
folks, because your hydro company, your insurance company, your
landlord and even the police think
you have. Add up the stolen electricity, electrical repairs, fires at
grow-ops, the expensive and
toxic mould cleanup and policing costs to combat the flourishing
industry, and the costs passed on
to the public are staggering.
- Grow-Ops
Must Be
Stopped
- Don't
Let Us Go To Pot
- Pot
Big Business Here Says
Robinson Cowichan cops are barely touching the roots of the
Valley's growing commercial
drug problem.And they won't until more resources are freed up to tackle
the organized crime
problem, according to North Cowichan/Duncan's top cop.
- Everyone
Pays Stolen Electricity, Structural Damage And
Toxic Mould Are Among The Byproducts Of Indoor Grow
Ops [No - they are byproducts of
prohibition]
It's
More Potent Than In The
'60s While methamphetamines have been
around since the 1960s, the new
wave of high-powered crystal meth is much purer and more potent than
what was available in the
past, says the prevention/treatment manager for the Northwest High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area
in Washington State. [Thought it was about
pot, right? No - same
template, different illegal drug ]
- Easing
Pot Laws Bad For Economy,
Warns Big Business
- CEOs
Fear Reefer Madness
- Stockmarket
Used By Organized
Crime
- Hash
Oil Burns Home Parents Cooked Drugs, Not
Breakfast For Kids. At a time when many people would be cooking
bacon and eggs, a North End couple spent their Saturday morning making
something a little less
traditional. A kitchen fire broke out about 9 a.m. Saturday as the
parents of four young children,
were cooking drugs on the stove. [Maybe the
kids already had breakfast,
perhaps many people don't cook bacon and eggs, maybe if the parents
could have bought some oil at
the store... ]
- Children
in Squalor at Grow
House [ Thanks to
misdirected resources, kids all over Canada
live
in squalor, the majority are not in grow ops]
- Pot
Cafe A High-Volume Dealer, Say
Police [Liquor stores, bars, pharmacies and
hospitals are all high volume
drug dealers too - just depends on how you want to spin it]
- Pot
Hypocrisy Carol Gwilt says she's "just trying to
be a business person." So were all the restaurant and
bar owners who allowed smoking on their premises and can no longer
legally do so. [Were they thrown in
jail for months without bail
too? Didn't think
so]
- Marijuana
Not The Harmless
Drug
- Cops
Fear Grow-Op Exposure
Canada's police chiefs are calling on the federal government to launch
a study into the health
effects for police officers who bust marijuana grow operations ( MGO ).
- Police
Say Illness Tied To Pot
Raid A Vancouver policewoman is suffering from a mysterious illness
police say is linked to a
raid on a marijuana growing operation, but medical experts are at odds
over the cause.
Strategies (for those
with unlimited funds provided
in part by cannabis consumers themselves):
- Province
Developing Law To Help
Tackle Grow-ops Winnipeg
- Landlords'
Association Criticizes
Proposed Marijuana-Growing-Operation Bylaw The bylaw allows
penalties of up to $10,000 for
landlords whose buildings are used to grow or produce illegal drugs.
- Where
There's Pot Smoke, There's
Abbotsford's Ire The city is putting forward a resolution to the
Union of B.C.
Municipalities' ( UBCM ) annual convention next month, calling for a
harder line to be taken
against those found guilty of growing or distributing pot.
- Landlords
To Pay For Grow Ops
Property owners who allow their buildings to be used for meth labs or
marijuana grow operations in
Maple Ridge will be stung with hefty bills for cleanup costs, because
of a bylaw whisked through
council on Monday.
- Pot
Bylaws Strengthened Those
caught with marijuana growing in their houses in Abbotsford will have
their water shut off within
24 hours and will have to vacate their premises, as the city council
agreed to add more muscle to
the Controlled Substance Bylaw.
- Council
Studies Ways To Combat
Marijuana Grow Houses A proliferation of marijuana grow houses in
the city -- specifically in
northwest Scarborough -- has city councillors considering new ways to
combat the new urban
menace.
- Grow-Op Statement Speaks For Whole City The twist with the public safety committee's plan is that they want the police to read in statements on behalf of the community as a whole.
- Get
Tough On Drugs, Cops Urge
Kelowna RCMP want tougher sentences for drug traffickers, and they're
thinking of asking for
volunteers to track the kind of punishment - or lack of it - judges are
handing out
- Court
Watchers Find 97% Of
Drug-related Charges Result In Very Little Punishment Abbotsford's court
watchers program is calling for changes to the criminal justice system
after finding 97 per cent of
drug-related charges receive *little punishment* in the courts. [ What REAL Women do in their spare
time]
- Drug
Program Targets Adolescents
...by the end of this school year, every Grade 7 and 8 student in
Portage and Oakville will have
gone through an extensive drug and alcohol prevention program.
- Drug
Seminar Aimed At Parents
Speakers will include Cst. Rob Rubuliak of the Vermilion RCMP/ AADAC
addictions counsellor Kim
Ruptash.
- Reformed
Gangster Talks Tough To
Teens
- Harm
Reduction No Cure For Drug Use
In Schools Harm reduction, defined as reducing the negative health
and social consequences of
drug use, should be integrated with the current abstinence education
children receive in schools,
district drug and alcohol prevention and intervention co-ordinator
Angela Lawrence
reported.
- Drug
Policy Must Focus On Kids"By
the time a child is in Grade 6 they are making decisions on whether to
use drugs or alcohol," [a
small percentage will make that decision, yet all will probably drive -
how much time and attention
is given to how to safely maneuver thousands of pounds of steel at
speeds of 100 km an hour ?]
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