In September 2005 Whitehorse RCMP carried out an eleven-hour drug bust on three homes in the Copper Ridge subdivision, seizing 2,400 marijuana plants with a street value of up to $5 million, and searched a fourth Copper Ridge home three days later.[1] Three Whitehorse men and two Vancouver residents were charged after the 23 September raids, and in total police seized 4,500 pot plants from the Copper Ridge grow-ops and charged eight men with possessing and growing marijuana.[1][2]
The case went to trial in November 2006, and in April 2007 the territorial court judge ruled that the RCMP had breached the arrested men’s Charter rights to legal counsel, manipulated court documents, arrested people without grounds and mishandled the accused after arrest, excluding a great deal of evidence.[2] Four of the eight men were acquitted, the Crown filed an appeal notice in May 2007, but the RCMP could not find the men to serve it and abandoned the appeal.[2] Of the other four accused, three pleaded guilty and served up to a year in jail while one man’s guilty plea in Vancouver was still before the courts.[2]
