By Dean Beeby
The Waterloo Region Record
OTTAWA, Canada — Canada’s police, firefighters and paramedics need better training on the hazards they face when unknowingly entering grow-ops and drug labs — some rigged with booby traps meant to injure or kill them.
That’s the strong message from 36 first responders in Canada’s major cities who were surveyed in a recent study by the federal Justice Department.
“All first responders indicated that these chance discoveries’ caused them the most concern in terms of the safety and health risks they face upon entering a site,” says the study, completed this spring.
“Drug production sites are often protected by anti-personnel devices and booby traps. These incendiary devices are intended to impede police investigations and prevent thefts.”
The report surveyed 36 emergency workers across Canada, part of a federal-provincial project begun in 2002 to combat indoor marijuana farms, known as grow-ops, and clandestine illegal-drug labs.
A copy of the March 24 report was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. The survey included telephone interviews with police officers, firefighters, paramedics and seven Health Canada chemists.
Each worker responded to an average of between five and 10 incidents each year that involved drug labs, and between 10 and 20 that involved grow-ops. Sometimes there was a house fire, explosion or medical emergency — and in about half those cases there was no warning of any illegal operation at the site.
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