In what is considered one of the largest drug operations ever carried out in Toronto, police last week raided a marijuana grow-op spread over 22 apartment units in a 13-storey high-rise. More than 6,000 plants with an estimated street-value of $6 million as well as $45 million worth of dried marijuana were seized.
"Six thousand plants is probably a big bust," says Superintendent Paul Nadeau, Director of the Drug Branch for the RCMP in Ottawa. "But overall, across the country, those kinds of seizures are unfortunately becoming fairly common now."
The bust offers a glimpse into the proliferation of Canada's marijuana industry.
Figures from Statistics Canada show that marijuana grow-ops have more than doubled over the past decade. There were 8,000 cultivation offences in 2004, a significant rise compared to the 3,400 incidents recorded in 1994.
In the west, home of the potent "B.C. Bud," a study conducted by the University College of the Fraser Valley (UCFV) showed that the average number of plants per grow-op in B.C. has jumped from 141 in 1997 to 208 in 2003, an increase of over 47 percent in just 6 years.
Vancouver police said in a news conference in July that since drug squads started a crackdown in that city five years ago, operators have been migrating east, with the result that Ontario is now seeing a rise in grow-op activity. Vancouver Police statistics state that more than 3,000 grow operations worth $750 million have been shut down since 1991.
"Marijuana grow-ops are an absolute cancer that are eating away many of the communities there [in B.C.]," says Nadeau, who has recently been transferred from Vancouver to Ottawa. "We had many cases where we had townhouse complexes where a number of units were being used to grow marijuana."
Marijuana, a mind-altering drug that can impair judgment and cause problems with memory and learning, has an impact on society in more ways than one. The lucrative market created by the rising demand for the illicit drug has led to higher organized crime activity and more gang-related problems in cities across the country.
In addition, mold and chemicals released into the air from indoor grow-ops like the one seized last week can pose a threat to nearby homes and communities. Grow operations also increase the risk of residential fires. According to UCFV 's research, a house being used to grow marijuana is 24 times more likely to catch fire than a normal house.
In 2004, U.S. Customs seized 19,160 kg of marijuana destined for the U.S. from Canada, up from 5,697 kg in the previous year and 2,235 kg in 2000. It is thought that another reason grow operators are setting up in Ontario is to avail of the much larger market in the eastern U.S. and to capitalize on the growing appetite for Canadian marijuana south of the border.
Demand for the drug is also on the rise in Canada. A 2004 survey sponsored by Health Canada and the Canadian Centre in Substance Abuse showed that the number of Canadians using marijuana has doubled compared to a decade ago.
"It's very simple laws of economics," explains Eugene Oscapella, a Barrister and Solicitor in Ottawa and a founding member of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy. "There's very strong demand for marijuana in Canada and in the United States, so when you've got an extremely profitable market with a great level of demand, obviously people are going to produce it."
Police and lawmakers have suggested that the growing prevalence of grow operations can be partly blamed on the light sentences handed down in Canada for marijuana offences. Ontario Conservative Party leader John Tory called for stiffer penalties for grow-ops after the Toronto bust, and said the Ontario government should ensure that the perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Nadeau says that anyone who becomes involved in criminal activity is going to try to balance the risk versus the reward, and "clearly from the money that can be made from growing marijuana, compared to the risk that you can encounter if you're growing marijuana, for many people the decision is fairly easy."
In a move toward decriminalizing marijuana use and possession in 2003, the Liberal government's Marijuana Reform Bill would have made possession of small amounts of the drug a mere ticketable offence. The idea was that softer penalties would avoid the possibility of casual users or young people who temporarily experimented with pot ending up with a criminal record which would remain with them for the rest of their lives.
However, since taking office earlier this year, the Conservative government says there's no plan to ease the marijuana laws.
Oscapella believes the best way to counteract the problem is to eliminate criminal prohibition of the drug altogether. Many groups across the country and those who see marijuana as a benign drug have been fighting for legalization, the thinking being that legalization is the only way to effectively remove the criminal element from the marijuana trade.
"You wouldn't have massive grow operations endangering people in apartment buildings like the one in Toronto if it were a legal, regulated trade," says Oscapella.
On the other hand, Professor Robert Solomon, a Law professor at the University of Western Ontario, believes a better approach would be to implement more effective and efficient enforcement rather than legalization or imposing stiffer penalties.
"While an increase in penalty may reflect society's concern, it doesn't appear to have significant deterrent impact. What's required is to increase the risk of actually getting caught."
Solomon points out that there are international conventions to which Canada is a signatory that could pose some difficulty in eliminating prohibition. He remains skeptical that removing criminal sanctions would help solve the problem.
"I'm not as convinced that we could come up with a regulated system of making marijuana available that would not have significant problems," says Solomon.
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