Compilation 2: Legalizing Marijuana, Grow-ops, RCMP, OMGs, Ports, Truckers and Drugs

List of Articles:

* Legalizing pot would put workers at risk, expert warns -- Marijuana use associated with fatigue, inability to focus, scientist says
* Grow-op chief guilty -- EX-BEER PLANT IN BARRIE THE BIGGEST KNOWN POT PLANTATION
* The RCMP's gangster 'hit list' -- New Approach -- OMG Members at Ports
* Truckloads of pot
* Truckers share in drug haul -- Police want to film confession of slayings, ex-gangster says
Canada’s sad truth -- Part 22 - The Global Mafia finds comfort in country’s lack of anti-organized crime laws

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Legalizing pot would put workers at risk, expert warns -- Marijuana use associated with fatigue, inability to focus, scientist says

Legalizing pot would put workers at risk, expert warns -- Marijuana use associated with fatigue, inability to focus, scientist says Francine Kopun, National Post, Nov. 23, 04

Legalizing marijuana in Canada would lead to a surge in inexperienced users who could be putting themselves at risk in the workplace, according to a workplace health and safety expert.

"Users tend to feel that their performance is enhanced by marijuana," said Dr. Martin Shain, a senior scientist with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, yesterday. "It's more likely to be associated with loss of concentration, inability to focus, general wash-out fatigue." [. . . . ]

Grow-op chief guilty -- EX-BEER PLANT IN BARRIE THE BIGGEST KNOWN POT PLANTATION

Grow-op chief guilty -- EX-BEER PLANT IN BARRIE THE BIGGEST KNOWN POT PLANTATION Tracy McLaughlin, Nov. 23, 04, Toronto Sun

This one has plenty of details; do link.

A MAN known as the "chief" of the gardeners pleaded guilty yesterday to drug charges in connection with the mammoth marijuana plantation flourishing inside the former Molson's brewery in Barrie. Michael DiCicco, 61, of Toronto, pleaded guilty in Barrie court to production and possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, although sentences over two years are rarely handed out by judges in grow-op cases.

Last January hundreds of police officers converged on the giant grow house that, so far, has surpassed any other in Canada in size. Cops found a sophisticated multi-million dollar operation with employed gardeners who lived inside hidden quarters and worked around the clock to crank out crops that netted $100 million a year.

[. . . . ] OPP Det. Staff-Sgt. Rick Barnum testified he believed the marijuana was destined for the United States, either for sale or for trade for weapons and cocaine. He said grow-ops are rare in the U.S. because of stiff prison sentences, compared to relatively light sentences in Canada.

[. . . . ] He said one OPP undercover study showed that about 2,000 grow houses operated in all of the U.S., compared to 15,000 to 25,000 in the Toronto region alone. [. . . . ]

The RCMP's gangster 'hit list' -- New Approach -- OMG Members at Ports

The RCMP's gangster 'hit list' (Category: Biker News), Posted by ace, Saturday 11 September 2004 - 09:22:44

[. . . . ] The RCMP has compiled a secret "hit list" of B.C.'s 20 most dangerous crime bosses, a list it hopes will help it put more gangsters behind bars and strike a blow against organized crime in this province, a joint Vancouver Sun-Victoria Times Colonist investigation has learned.

[. . . . ] "OMG [outlaw motorcycle gangs] is the top," said Supt. Dick Grattan, head of the RCMP's criminal intelligence section in B.C.

Grattan said biker-gang members make up the largest proportion of people on
the force's Top 20 list, an annual ranking known as the Strategic Threat Assessment that the Mounties in B.C. have been producing for the past few years.

[. . . . ] According to police, the list represents a shift in the RCMP's approach to investigating organized crime. Until recently, said Grattan, the force was "commodity focused" -- measuring success by the volume of drugs it seized.

The problem with that approach, however, is that it often only ensnared the smaller players, leaving many of the kingpins untouched. The goal now, Grattan said, is for police to focus their investigations on the most influential and powerful crime figures, in the hope that putting such people behind bars will destabilize criminal organizations.

[. . . . ] To winnow down the list, crime figures were ranked on 19 separate actors, including use of violence, infiltration into legitimate businesses and ability to corrupt officials. That combination of factors is what landed many of B.C.'s Hells Angels members in the Top 20. A heavily edited copy of the 2003 strategic Threat Assessment, provided to The Vancouver Sun by the RCMP, indicates how high a priority the Angels have become.

[. . . . ] But The Sun has learned that a secret 2001 report by the Organized Crime Agency of B.C. identified by name five full members of the Hells Angels who work at the Vancouver and Delta ports, along with more than 30 known associates.

[. . . . ] Athwal said longshoremen are not subject to criminal-record checks or other background checks before working at the ports. However, Transport Canada has
proposed new regulations that would require port workers -- like airport workers -- to be subject to background checks before working in restricted areas. [. . . . ]

Truckloads of pot

Truckloads of pot -- B.C. truckers fear their industry is being used by organized criminals involved in the booming marijuana trade. Drivers prepared to take the risk are being paid up to $50,000 to smuggle drugs across the border into the United States.

Fly-by-night businesses are often underbidding legitimate companies by huge margins, since they don't really need the revenue from the load -- making it tough for the legal operators to survive.

"In 1974, we would get $2,000 for a Vancouver to L.A. trip," Jawanda said. "Now it is as low as $1,300."

Several truckers interviewed during a Vancouver Sun investigation say they are concerned about organized crime infiltrating the industry.

They say many truckers are tempted by the prospect of earning tens of thousands of dollars without much chance of getting caught.

But the execution-style murders in recent months of two Lower Mainland truckers with links to drugs also have industry insiders worried that the violence is increasing.

[. . . . ] Earlier this year, U.S. Customs noted a phenomenal increase in the amount of marijuana being smuggled in from B.C. in commercial vehicles. Currently, about 50 per cent of the seizures are from commercial trucks -- up from just two per cent five years ago.

Morgan said it is hard to know if the culprit is a driver, a shipper or a company owner.

"Sometimes the companies are involved, sometimes the truck driver is involved, and sometimes the truck driver is unaware what is going on because the contraband is concealed inside the commodity, so it's the consignee or the shipper of the commodity," he said.

[. . . . ] Criminal gangs want the pot across the border so badly because they can sell it in the U.S. for almost four times the price they can get in Canada. Here, a kilogram of B.C. marijuana earns its distributor about $8,500. In the U.S., the figure is closer to $30,000. [. . . . ]

Truckers share in drug haul -- Police want to film confession of slayings, ex-gangster says

Truckers share in drug haul Kim Bolan, Vancouver Sun, Sept. 18, 04

Former gangster Bal Buttar says four undercover police officers tried to pressure him on Friday into making a videotaped statement about revelations he made in The Vancouver Sun about a series of Indo-Canadian gangland slayings.

Buttar, now a blind quadriplegic after an August 2001 shooting, said the surprise visit from the police officers came mid-afternoon Friday as he was with some friends. The police stayed about half an hour.

[. . . . ] In exclusive interviews, Buttar admitted he arranged the December 1998 hit on notorious cocaine trafficker Bindy Johal because he felt Johal would have killed him if he hadn't acted first.

He also said he had been involved in a number of unsolved murders when he was Johal's lieutenant in an organized criminal gang they called the "Indo-Canadian Mafia." [. . . . ]

You might wish to search for an article on "B.C.'S ORGANIZED CRIME FAMILIES" originally posted in the Vancouver Sun in September, 04.




Canada’s sad truth -- Part 22 - The Global Mafia finds comfort in country’s lack of anti-organized crime laws

Canada’s sad truth -- Part 22 - The Global Mafia finds comfort in country’s lack of anti-organized crime laws Antonio Nicaso, originally published Nov. 24, 01

It’s the world’s fastest growing industry, with profits estimated at $1 trillion, and it poses a greater security challenge to Western democracies than anything they’ve faced during the Cold War.

It’s the Global Mafia, a new, virulent form of international organized crime. Canada is one of its strongholds.

According to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service "there are approximately 18 active transnational criminal organizations represented in Canada." Not only do they increasingly cooperate to slice up the criminal profits in Canada, but they also use Canada as multi-national fulcrum to plan and coordinate their international criminal ventures.

The reason: they face a much lower risk of detection and prosecution than in the United States or in Europe. As Oliver Buck Revell, former assistant director of the FBI, put it in a recent interview with the National Post: "Canada is a particularly weak link in the international law enforcement effort." [. . . . ]

Along with other sections, this is online and gives suggestions on what is necessary to change the situation.