Pubdate: Sun, 03 Jul 2011 Source: Record, The (Kitchener, CN ON) Copyright: 2011 The Record Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/942MrkRX Website: http://news.therecord.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/225 Author: Dean Beeby POLICE COLLEGE TRAINING GROW-OP LOCATED IN POSH OTTAWA NEIGHBOURHOOD OTTAWA -- An upscale neighbourhood on Ottawa's east side -- home to prime ministers, high-tech titans and diplomats -- is also the location of Canada's most-raided marijuana grow-op. The seedy operation in a two-storey brick duplex, nestled among the broad lawns and tony homes of Rockcliffe Park and Manor Park, is well-known to drug police across the country. That's because many of them have trained here, at the RCMP-run Canadian Police College, which uses a fake residence to teach officers how to safely raid grow-ops and clandestine drug labs while making arrests and preserving evidence. This so-called "scenario house," also known as "Building G" on the college campus, is crawling with police on a summer morning. Many are shrouded head-to-toe in white suits, respirators and masks for protection against unpronounceable chemicals and toxic gases. "Make sure you carry the (chemical) barrels away from your body," a Health Canada chemist warns a pair of suited-up officers, who are being trained to remove hazardous chemicals from an illegal crystal-meth lab. "You can get abrasions on your suit, and acids or strong bases can get through." The female chemist-trainer, like almost all the participants in this exercise, insist their names and pictures be withheld because they often participate in undercover drug stings. There's little danger of injury in this strange classroom. No real chemicals are stored in the kitchen-like lab, although all of the equipment -- from cookers and distilling tubes to mixers and pill-pressers -- are genuine, seized from actual labs as evidence and no longer required in court. Next door, an elaborate grow-op also features a full set of genuine equipment, from hot lamps and carbon-dioxide emitters to ozone machines. But the small marijuana cuttings in one room, and the mature plants under the lights in two other rooms, are quite unsmokable: they're plastic look-alikes, supplied by an American firm. RCMP Sgt. Norm Leger, who's in charge of the college's three-week drug course, points out some hazards raiding officers face inside grow-ops. Hot lamps can drive indoor temperatures to above 40 C, but it's dangerous to open windows because condensation from cool outside air can make the bulbs explode. Carbon-dioxide producing devices can malfunction and fill a room with deadly carbon-monoxide, Leger says. And dangerous electrical charges can linger in devices up to 30 minutes after the power supply has been cut. And then there are the booby traps -- tripwire guns, fish hooks embedded in railings, electrified doors. "We still encounter them quite a bit," he says. The two-week "clan-lab" course is advanced training, after the basic drug course has exposed students to the full investigative process, which includes how to safely raid grow-ops. RCMP Sgt. Michael Renault, a clan-lab instructor since 2007, got his basic training in the Netherlands, where police have developed expertise because of the proliferation of illegal labs in that country. But Canada is no slouch at cooking illegal drugs. The latest UN World Drug Report, issued last month, placed Canada third behind the United States and Netherlands in total seizures of ecstasy, 407 kilograms in 2009. The report also calls Canada a leading exporter of methamphetamines to the United States. Police here shut down 22 meth labs in 2009 along with 12 ecstasy operations, many of them set up in kitchens using instructions freely available on the internet. "The vast majority of clan labs seized in Canada continued to be located in urban areas, primarily in the Vancouver region, the Greater Toronto Area and the Montreal region," says the RCMP's 2009 report on illicit drugs. Marijuana grow-ops are far more ubiquitous in Canada, with thousands hidden in modest suburban homes. Police teams across Canada seized 1.8 million plants in 2009, many from grow-ops. A recent Justice Department survey of first responders -- police, firefighters and paramedics -- found that most of them wanted more training and equipment to deal with the hidden dangers of grow-ops, including toxic mould. Renault says police are more often encountering bomb-making operations inside drug labs, yet another danger that officers must be trained to spot by identifying the precursor chemicals. About 168 officers take the college's drug investigation course each year, at both the Ottawa and Chilliwack, B.C., campuses. Another 54 enrol annually in the advanced clan-lab course in Ottawa. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.