Pubdate: Mon, 08 Aug 2005
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2005 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Mark Cardwell
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

FARMERS' DEAL LETS POLICE GET WEED EARLY

Pot Raids Simplified In A Major Quebec Marijuana Region

It wasn't the quantity of marijuana plants seized in police raids
across one of Quebec's most fertile rural regions late last month that
has local farmers smiling.

Rather, it was the timing of the raids and the apparent success of a
new and unique crime-fighting agreement in one of Quebec's top
pot-growing areas.

"We haven't put an end to this trade or scared off the growers," said
Sgt. Benoit Leclerc, deputy chief of the Surete du Quebec post in Nicolet.

"But we've got them looking over their shoulders."

Leclerc took part in raids on 30 farms across the Mauricie and Centre
du Quebec regions on July 27 - raids made possible by a contract
signed by farmers with the SQ. Most of the 8,000 immature pot plants
seized were found in the Centre du Quebec, an agricultural region on
the south shore of the St. Lawrence River halfway between Montreal and
Quebec City.

It is the biggest milk-producing region in Quebec and Canada and the
third-biggest producer of pork and cereals in the province. However,
it also is one of Quebec's leading areas for outdoor marijuana production.

Last fall, for example, police found and destroyed more than 65,500
mature plants there with an estimated street value of more than $13
million. The vast majority of those plants - and the estimated tens of
thousands that were not discovered - were grown in the midst of the
huge corn fields that blanket much of the region.

Although a boon for criminals, the region's flourishing pot-growing
industry has become a serious problem for local law enforcement,
social services, schools and, in particular, farmers.

According to Jean-Pierre Belisle, regional director of Quebec's
powerful farmers' federation, the Union des producteurs agricoles, few
farmers complain publicly or go to police. Privately, however, many
have horror stories to tell about run-ins with armed and aggressive
pot growers who are eager to keep their crops safe and secret, he said.

"There have been a lot of intimidation and threats," Belisle said. He
added that some farmers have had equipment vandalized. A few have lost
barns in suspicious fires.

"It's got to the point where some are afraid to go out into their
fields," Belisle said. "It's got to stop."

The raid late last month - the first in the region in mid-summer - was
part of a new approach to deal with the problem.

In June, more than 800 of the 1,100 farmers in the area signed a
contract with the SQ that gives police the right to enter, cross
and/or carry out surveillance operations and raids on their properties
without their knowledge or prior consent.

Before, police had to ask individual farmers for permission to enter
their land.

The two-page "social contract" is believed to be the first of its kind
in Canada and last week's raids were also the first to be carried out
under it.

Normally, police wait to make arrests until harvest time in September
and October, when two-metre-high pot plants with flowering buds fetch
$2,000 each. Now, local SQ units are trying to find and destroy young
plants with no commercial value, like the two- and three-footers found
last week.

"It lowers the danger of confrontation and it's too late in the season
for growers to start again," Leclerc said. "It's also a lot easier for
us to uproot them. Pot plants are like small trees when they're fully
grown."

The downside, he added, is that smaller plants are harder to
detect.

By giving police carte blanche access to their properties, Leclerc
said, farmers are both divesting themselves of responsibility for
police operations and facilitating the anti-pot battle. "What we're
hearing is that farmers feel more secure, that they feel they're being
supported by their neighbours and by police." Leclerc said.

He added that "99.99 per cent" of the farmers who have mailed their
contracts to the SQ post in Nicolet "responded positively."

He said the farmers' action also sends a strong signal to growers that
they will not be intimidated.

Both the mid-summer raids and the new social contract were
recommendations of a local committee of farmers, police and
public-health and education officials that was created last year to
look at how to stem the cultivation of marijuana in their area.

"Our objective is to get pot out of our fields, plain and simple,"
said Belisle, who represented farmers on the committee.

"We don't want another situation like in Alberta this spring (when
four Mounties were killed on a pot raid). We're helping to nip this
problem in the bud."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin