Cannabis Chronicles

In a day and age where cutbacks in government services are the norm rather than the exception, our illustrious RCMP is ramping up their efforts to eradicate cannabis grown on government land.

Here’s a portion of a recent article from the Victoria Times Colonist:

Marijuana busts set a record
Team finds 19,000 plants at 350 sites in nine-day campaign

by Rob Shaw
from the Victoria Times Colonist - Friday, August 31, 2007

Island police say they’ve destroyed the largest amount of marijuana since they started a summer eradication program eight years ago.

A combined team of RCMP, municipal police and Canadian Forces personnel found more than 19,000 plants at 350 sites during a nine-day campaign that ended this week.

“To be the best of my knowledge, this is the largest haul,” said Cpl. Greg Cox, RCMP Island spokesman.

“I think it’s a combination of things. The weather was very co-operative with us this year which made it a little bit easier for the project to be done. As well, marijuana production, and I don’t mean this to be a pun, but it is a growing problem.”

Well were certainly glad that the RCMP enjoyed good weather while they were out on their expedition “stalking cannabis”, because bad weather likely would have led to even greater expenditures in man power and tax dollars. Now before anybody imagines we are criticizing poor hard working stiffs who were only doing their job, these aren’t working folks reduced to fighting their way through pristine wilderness to get at dangerous and remote grow operations. If that’s what you imagine to be the life of a “pot hunter”, please think again and read the following excerpt:

The team mainly focused on grow-ops on Crown land, typically in remote, out-of-the-way locations. The Canadian Forces used its Sea King helicopters to help spot sites and transport personnel.

Even though the summer eradication program is widely-publicized every year, Cox said profits are large enough that people are willing to take the risk of being discovered by police.

Two things come to mind at this point. The first point we’d like to make is that the RCMP is using Sea King helicopters, that’s state of the art military equipment like used by the RAF and Royal Navy. Certainly that seems to be more than just overkill, wouldn’t these kind of resources be far better used patrolling borders and making us more safe from potentially dangerous criminals and terrorists?

Here’s the other thing that strikes us a “funny”, not funny “haha” but funny sad and ironic. Cox talks about how growers are ready to risk discovery in order to make large profits, but in the next paragraph of the paper, our now familiar RCMP spokesperson relates the following:

No one was charged in the seizures.

So the RCMP are telling us that they once again have waged a successful “raid” in their war on drugs, but once again there are no arrests! That strikes us as just as disingenuous as when Ontario Provincial Police called their drunk driving checkpoint outside of Hempfest a “success”, despite the fact that the three day operation didn’t even net a single drunk driver!

If you thought our RCMP spokesperson hadn’t put his foot far enough in his mouth yet, then you need to read a bit further . . .

Police did find two men at one grow-op in Campbell River.
However, Cox said because it was on Crown land there was no proof the men were responsible.

Wow! RCMP spokesperson Cox basically provides a blueprint to a get-out-of-jail-free card, just put your grow-op on Crown land, and viola you are safe!

Investigators believe many of the grow-ops are linked to organized crime, said Cox.

Critics call the police’s summer eradication program a public-relations exercise and an ineffective use of taxpayer dollars.

Last year’s program cost approximately $40,000, including fuel for the helicopters, said Cox. But he said value of the marijuana seized exceeded the costs.

We’d not doubt that for a second, but BC investigators were unable to pin a huge number of different charges against the owners of Advanced Nutrients, in what was supposed to be an open and shut case. So other than “believing”, (after all ya gotta believe!), what’s RCMP doing to get organized crime out of the growing biz?