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Shootings were inevitable, top drug officer says: No 'ma and pa' operations: Most operators have criminal history, many of them violent
National Post
Fri 04 Mar 2005
Page: A4
Section: News
Byline: Nicholas Kohler
Source: National Post, with files from CanWest News Service

An RCMP officer who's made a career out of hunting down marijuana growing operations said last night that it was just a matter of time before a police raid on a grower would result in a massacre.

"I hate to say it," said Inspector Paul Nadeau from Vancouver, B.C., "but it was bound to happen sooner or later.

"Over time," he said, "the numbers catch up to you."

Inspector Nadeau, who heads up the RCMP Co-ordinated Marijuana Enforcement Team in British Columbia, took pains last night to distinguish grow-ops from the "mom and pop" garden operations of the popular Canadian imagination.

In fact, the 4,500 grow-ops reported in B.C. alone each year are booby trap-ridden, gang-run dens of peril, where officers encounter the jolt of live electrical wires connected to door knobs, basement stairs descending into pitch black dark with missing steps and noxious chemicals either deliberately or accidentally left to simmer fumes.

Such dangers, the traps and explosives, are present in all of 2.1% of grow-ops in B.C., while knives are encountered in 2.9% and guns in 6%.

More often, it's the stolen hydro electricity surging through raw, amateur wiring, that can pose the most immediate danger to officers.

"You just watch where you step and you watch what you touch," said Insp. Nadeau of the grow-ops.

Meanwhile, the operators, Asian gang members and outlaw bikers, are dangers in themselves.

"In so far as the suspects that we encounter in these grow-ops, there's a myth, there's an illusion among some members of the public, that we're dealing with ma and pa operations, and that these are people that are peaceful ... nothing could be further from the truth," said Insp. Nadeau.

Growers have, on average, a 13-year criminal history, seven prior criminal convictions -- 41% of them for violent offences. Those numbers are particularly scary because 75% of grow-ops are in residential districts, bringing turf wars, home-invasions and environmental risks closer to families and children.

In B.C., it's estimated there are 10,000 to 15,000 grow-ops in the province, with up to 3,700 children believed to be living in them, while as many as 10,000 children are believed to be living in grow-ops in Ontario, according to a 2003 Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police report titled Green Tide.

What draws the growers to marijuana gardening is big, big money.

Darryl Plecas, a criminologist at the University College of the Fraser Valley, in Abbotsford, B.C., estimates the industry generates billions each year -- in B.C. alone.

In just a single family-sized dwelling, he said, a grower can make half-a-million dollars, if not a million cold.

"There's so much money to be made and the low-sentencing has made the risks so low that, frankly, the choice is fairly simple for them," said Insp. Nadeau.

But such violence as we saw last night is very uncommon, he said.

With sentences being as low as they are, most operators "will just turn themselves in and get arrested ... the use of weapons is unusual."

But it's not the police officers growers are most worried about: much of the danger stems from other criminals seeking to steal crops. That's when violence can really break, Insp. Nadeau said.

The grow-ops themselves are proliferating.

From suburban homes, to inner-city warehouses, and even a mothballed Molson brewery, grow-ops are proliferating across Canada and it's rare that a week goes by without a major bust.

In British Columbia in 1997, Insp. Nadeau said, the average operation boasted 149 plants.

In 2003, that number rose to 236 plants.

And the trend, which he said he's seen grow since his early days in the force 25 years ago, is creeping east at the same time as they grow more sophisticated.

Grow-ops surged in 1997 and peaked in 2000, with their numbers steady since then.

The incentive for the move east is the rich population centres of the eastern seaboard and the "insatiable appetite that Americans have for Canadian marijuana," Insp. Nadeau said, adding that 50% of Canadian-grown marijuana ends up in the U.S.

And what the U.S. sends us in return is even deadlier -- cocaine. "They're involved in it because it's their money machine. This is what they turn to to make money to finance other criminal activity" like importing cocaine, Insp. Nadeau said. "So when people talk about marijuana and grow-ops, its really not about the marijuana -- it's about the money."

The solution, argues Prof. Plecas, the criminologist, is higher sentences and a shift in how we deal with hydro-electricity-theft.

More fundamentally, said Prof. Plecas, who has just completed a seven-year study of the grow-op phenomenon with his Abbotsford colleagues, Canada must re-think its laws surrounding public vs. private property.

Here's a recent history of some of Canada's larger busts.

Last Thursday, police in Chilliwack, B.C., pulled 816 pot plants from a home in the city 92 kilometres east of Vancouver. The following day, RCMP found 800 plants and about 20 pounds of dried marijuana in a grow operation in Mission, also east of Vancouver.

A week later, neighbours at a housing complex in Coquitlam, B.C., said they weren't surprised when police found 28 separate marijuana grow-ops in the townhome.

And it's not just B.C., even Prince Edward Island has its share of grow-operations. Last month, police in Princeton uncovered 3,000 marijuana plants, growing equipment and drug paraphernalia in the tiny province's largest ever drug bust. One of the largest grow-ops in Canada's history was discovered mere blocks from police headquarters in Winnipeg. Officers found more than 10,000 plants in the boarded-up, two-storey brick warehouse.

The largest indoor operation found in Canada, with more than 25,000 pot plants, was uncovered Jan. 10, 2004, in the former Molson brewery in Barrie, Ont., an hour's drive north of Toronto.

Officials say grow-ops also create health risks for those who live within or near marijuana growing sites.

Glenn Jenkins, an environmental health officer in Edmonton, says many grow-ops are condemned as unfit for habitation because of mould.

from condensation releases spores that can cause respiratory ailments and other health problems.

Grow-operations are also an increasing concern for homeowners. Those who unwittingly rent out their home to grow operators are left with little recourse once the operation is discovered.

Often, the homes are left severely damaged with mould and rot because of the high humidity. Their reconfigured furnace vents create a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, and illegal wiring can be a fire risk.

Repairing the damage can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and officials at the Insurance Bureau of Canada say most policies will not honour a claim for damage caused by a grow-operation even if the owner was an innocent party and the activity occurred without his or her knowledge.

Though there are some grow-ops in inner-city neighbourhoods, most operators prefer the suburbs, especially homes with unfinished basements, says Sach.

In recent years, police have turned to the public for help in busting grow-ops.

Last year nearly 400,000 power customers in Calgary received brochures along with their electricity bills, telling them how to spot grow-ops. Tips included watching for evidence of condensation, fans running all the time, humming sounds and blinds that are always closed or windows blacked out.

Tips from the public are credited with increasing the number of plants seized in that city tenfold since 2001.

In some provinces, police are even instructing teachers to be on the lookout for children who may be living in grow-ops.