T
The420Guy
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Marijuana growers are firing guns and setting booby traps to stop poachers from pilfering their crops, police say.
The extreme measures are being taken to protect increasingly sophisticated and lucrative pot crops, said Det.-Insp. Morris Elbers, OPP drug team co-ordinator.
Plants are worth about $1,000 each.
No cops have been injured so far, but one pot-raider was paralyzed after he was shot last summer near Killaloe, east of Algonquin Park, Elbers said.
Closer to Toronto, a Coboconk-Minden crop thief escaped injury in one of two other shooting incidents.
Most amateur pot plots hidden among rows of corn or in creek bottoms have vanished since cops began a combined air-and-ground search program 11 years ago, Elbers said.
"Today the growers are much more sophisticated ... fertilizing their plants first in greenhouses and hydroponic operations, then transplanting," he said.
Many growers have also planted farther away from populated areas, he said. "Some sites can only be reached by canoe, others are growing at the end of a long lane."
Newshawk: creator@mapinc.org
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Website: Canoe.Com
Address: 333 King St. E., Toronto, Ontario M5A 3X5 Canada
Email: editor@sunpub.com
Forum: Canoe.Com
Copyright: 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Fax: (416) 947-3228
Author: Ian Robertson
Pubdate: Fri, 22 Dec 2000
The extreme measures are being taken to protect increasingly sophisticated and lucrative pot crops, said Det.-Insp. Morris Elbers, OPP drug team co-ordinator.
Plants are worth about $1,000 each.
No cops have been injured so far, but one pot-raider was paralyzed after he was shot last summer near Killaloe, east of Algonquin Park, Elbers said.
Closer to Toronto, a Coboconk-Minden crop thief escaped injury in one of two other shooting incidents.
Most amateur pot plots hidden among rows of corn or in creek bottoms have vanished since cops began a combined air-and-ground search program 11 years ago, Elbers said.
"Today the growers are much more sophisticated ... fertilizing their plants first in greenhouses and hydroponic operations, then transplanting," he said.
Many growers have also planted farther away from populated areas, he said. "Some sites can only be reached by canoe, others are growing at the end of a long lane."
Newshawk: creator@mapinc.org
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Website: Canoe.Com
Address: 333 King St. E., Toronto, Ontario M5A 3X5 Canada
Email: editor@sunpub.com
Forum: Canoe.Com
Copyright: 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Fax: (416) 947-3228
Author: Ian Robertson
Pubdate: Fri, 22 Dec 2000
