A WAR WORTH FIGHTING

The movie Traffic, up for consideration as Best Picture at Sunday's Oscar
ceremony, makes the case that the war on drugs has been a costly,
hypocritical failure that breeds crime and violence.

It's a familiar argument advanced by those who would decriminalize drugs
such as marijuana and cocaine, but it's not one that carries any weight with
the head of the RCMP's South Okanagan Marijuana Eradication Team.

Const. Terry Jacklin who oversees a task force that's making scores of pot
busts throughout the Okanagan, says the war on drugs should end in victory,
not surrender.

"I don't see why marijuana should be decriminalized when we already have
enough of a problem with alcohol and other legal drugs," Jacklin said
Friday.

"Marijuana is still a window drug that leads to harder ones. More than 70
per cent of the people who use cocaine started with marijuana," he says. "If
we legalize marijuana, we open too many doors that lead to abuse."

Pot growing is now the biggest, albeit illegal agricultural business in B.C.
each year's total harvest worth $4 billion, according to police estimates.
One in 10 B.C. residents now either smokes or grows pot, 63 per cent believe
it should be decriminalized, and one-quarter of teenage boys say they are
regular marijuana users.

"It's no big deal, just a way to relax and have fun when you're at a party
or sitting around with friends," says Jason, a young Kelowna man who smokes
marijuana a couple times a week.

He says he knows three people who sell marijuana and one who grows it.
They're all breaking the law, but he doesn't think of any of them as
criminals.

"No one's getting hurt. It's just supply and demand," he says. "Anyway,
it's not like you're going to jail if you're caught."

Indeed, Okanagan police rarely bother with arrests for simple marijuana
possession. They target growers instead, people who have anywhere from a
few dozen to several hundred plants in their basements or rented properties.

But even growers, provided it's their first offence and they have no other
criminal records, are unlikely to be jailed. B.C. courts are generally
imposing 12-month conditional sentences, and many of those convicted pay
fines averaging around $3,000.

"That's not my opinion of punishment," Jacklin says, reflecting the
widespread belief in law enforcement circles that the justice system is too
lenient on those who grow marijuana.

But it's not just police who are frustrated. Last month, the United Nations
criticized Canadian courts for being soft on pot growers. The UN's
International Narcotics Control Board says sentences given to pot growers
amount to no maore than a slap jon the wrist.

"We wonder whether that policy is a sufficient deterrent to get people not
to cultivate cannabis," said Herbert Schaepe, the board's secretary.

For some people who see pot use as relatively harmless, the drug is mixed up
in the '70s imagery of hippies, peace and love. But sophisticated
hydroponic growing methods now make marijuana more potent than ever.

The level of tetrahydrocannabinol, the compound that produces the high
experienced by users, was around four per cent in the 1970s, Jacklin says.
Now, it averages around 15 per cent, and sometimes tops 20 per cent.

The result has made "B.C. bud" the pot of choice in the U.S. and the export
market es extremely lucrative. A pound of B.C. grown pot can fetch about
$7,000 in California, more than twice what it sells for in Canada.

"The U.S. dollar is very influential," Jacklin says. "We estimate that
about 80 per cent of the marijuana produced in the Okanagan ends up being
smuggled across the line."

In total, police estimate that 800 tonnes of Canadian-grown marijuana is
smuggled into the U.S. each year. The U.S. Border Patrol says that dope
smuggling from the north increased tenfold in the past two years.

The average Okanagan marijuana growing operation has about 180 plants,
Jacklin says, and the number of grow ops has soared in recent years. "Four
or five years ago, it wasn't as common as it is now," he said.

While some may believe the typical pot grower has a long criminal history,
Jacklin said that's not the case: "There's a real mixture of people who get
involved in this. We've arrested people you'd think were fine, upstanding
members of the community.