Dealers growing marijuana in fancy homes

NEWMARKET, Ontario, May 19 (UPI) -- Many Canadian drug dealers hide marijuna-growing operations in expensive homes and trade crops with U.S. dealers for heroin, cocaine and weapons, police say.

"I don't believe there's any greater threat to community safety than the manufacture and distribution of illicit narcotics," said York Regional Police Chief Armand La Barge, who was part of a two-year anti-drug operation called Project Tropical Storm.

La Barge said investigators have found some dealers unloading hazardous materials from their marijuana-growing sites into landfills, the Toronto Star reported Monday.

The police chief said he was highly concerned for babies often found in drug-dealer homes full of hazardous materials.

Police raided 18 homes in Project Tropical Storm, seizing $12.5 million in marijuana and arresting 31 suspects on at lest 200 charges, the Star said.