[420 Girl]

Citing an unreasonable invasion of privacy, B.C. civic leaders Thursday defeated a Surrey initiative that sought to force medical marijuana growers to prove compliance with local bylaws.

Surrey wanted Ottawa to notify local cities when it licenses new local users and to make them prove their legal grow-ops are safe and meet electrical, fire and building codes.

The measure would have helped Surrey and other cities expand their use of fire code inspections to chase out illegal grow-ops.

Many medical marijuana users have more than just a couple of plants for personal use – sometimes unsafe commercial-scale plantations, Surrey Coun. Marvin Hunt told Union of B.C. Municipalities delegates.

"In many situations, it's very hard to distinguish some of the so-called legal marijuana grow operations from the illegal ones," he said.

But critics called the proposed measure unnecessary and unconstitutional.

"This raises serious privacy issues with personal health data," said Victoria Coun. and federally approved medical pot user Phillippe Lucas.

He said police can already get all the information they want from federal authorities and said medical pot users have "small gardens" not big grow-ops.

Sechelt Coun. Fred Taylor said it's unreasonable and inappropriate for city halls to collect lists of medical marijuana users.

"Here we are going to be requesting an ill person go to city hall and try to prove that they've met all these requirements," he added.

The resolution, which had the support of the UBCM executive, was defeated by a significant margin.

Earlier in the week, Surrey council unveiled a new how-to manual for other cities to use to force out grow-ops by sending fire inspectors to homes with unusually high power consumption.

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