DRUG UNIT BUSTING UP

Things could be coming up roses for marijuana growers in the Calgary area
with a local reduction in the concerted effort to smoke out hydroponic
gardens, say city police.

Calgary RCMP next month are reassigning their half of the four-member Green
Team, a unit that's focused its investigations on busting marijuana growing
operations in the city and surrounding areas.

"If I was a drug dealer, I would start growing dope in the Bragg Creek
area," said a frustrated Det. Jeff Plimmer, a city police member of the
Green Team.

"As far as (interdicting) marijuana growing in the Calgary area, it's ugly."

The Mounties say their Green Team participation didn't meet the force's
mandate of law enforcement of a national or international scope.

"It's not something that's being abandoned, it's being modified," said
Staff-Sgt. Birnie Smith of the Calgary RCMP drug unit.

"What we'll be doing is going after the major national and international
traffickers and the harder drugs that cause more harm."

Smith said the change -- being done in consultation with city police -- is
designed to better utilize limited RCMP resources in the war against drugs.

In July and August, the Green Team busted about $1 million worth of
home-grown marijuana from 15 operations.

The head of the city police drug unit said the move will hamper the fight
against the lucrative cash crop, whose prevalence police have described as
"an epidemic."

"It certainly does have an impact on us -- it does complicate things," said
Staff-Sgt. Paul Laventure.

Both Smith and Laventure point out that other city police and RCMP officers
doing general law enforcement also bust marijuana gardens and will continue
to do so.

But Laventure said officers in city districts are too burdened by regular
duties to be expected to give marijuana cultivators sustained attention.

Even so, the drug unit will seek the use of "extra people from the
districts to assist us with hydros," said Laventure.

Plimmer painted a grim picture of an undermanned drug unit battling a
proliferating local marijuana industry.

"We're losing the war so bad, it's unbelievable," Plimmer said.

A year ago, police tested a thermal imaging apparatus on the HAWC 1 city
police helicopter to gauge its effect in detecting the heat given off by
hydroponic lighting systems, said Plimmer.

The results, he said, were discouraging and the equipment -- used more
effectively to detect the body heat of suspects -- hasn't been used in the
drug war.

"The results were very poor and inconclusive," said Plimmer.

Copyright (c) 1998, Canoe Limited Partnership.

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson