WE'RE THE TOP IN POT

Canada now a major exporter of marijuana

Police examine an elaborate underground hydroponics marijuana lab just
southeast of Hamilton. Canada has become a major pot exporter and shipments
of top-quality weed are pouring over the U.S. border just like whiskey did
in the 1920s.

"You don't hear of boatloads or airplane shipments of weed coming into the
country -- there's no need to import from Jamaica, or Mexico or Thailand
anymore," said Det. Bryan Baxter of the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police
vice and drug squad.

"Today pot is being exported from Canada -- particularly B.C. and Ontario
- -- instead of being imported. Really good product is being put out here,"
he said.

Marc Emery of Vancouver, one of Canada's top champions of marijuana
legalization, said there's a good reason we're now an exporting nation.

HYDROPONICS

"We have the best pot," said Emery, whose trials and tribulations with
Vancouver officials are featured in Rolling Stone magazine's April 2 issue.

"Pot is now one of Canada's primary agricultural products," said Emery, who
was forced in January to sell his Cannabis Cafe and Hemp B.C. head shop to
his employees, close down his Little Grow Shop and restrict his worldwide,
mail-order seed sales on the Internet after city officials revoked his
business licences.

Emery says pot is a $4-billion business in B.C. and a $7- to $8-billion
industry Canadawide.

Most of it goes to the U.S. -- particularly Oregon, California and
Washington states from B.C. suppliers, and to New York and other eastern
states from Ontario suppliers.

Emery says 98% of the exported weed -- moved in everything from backpacks
to ships -- gets through.

U.S. authorities have some 7,000 agents patrolling the 3,200-km Mexican
border but only 300 covering the 8,850-km Canada-U.S. border. Emery says
B.C.'s pot is the best in the world and Ontario's is just a cut below.

Emery attributes that to B.C.'s long pot history -- going back to the
American draft dodgers of the '60s -- and decades of experimentation.
Another reason for Canada's reputation as a supplier of quality pot is the
continuing development of hydroponic pot growing.

"Hydroponic is the preferred way to grow pot today," said Det. Rick Chase
of the Toronto Police's Central Command drug squad.

Indoor hydroponic growing is a trend that began in the mid-'80s and has
largely replaced outside "grows," as they say in the business. In a
hydroponic operation, plants are fed nutrient-rich water and nurtured under
artificial high-intensity lights.

Instead of soil, various substances, such as porous spun or wool rock, are
used to anchor plants and nutrients are taken from the water instead of
soil.

"You can have a large, lucrative setup in a relatively small area," said Chase.

"In addition you get a better quality product -- it's all bud with no
'shake' (leaves and stems)."

Another advantage of hydroponic is the fact growers can get three or four
crops a year -- compared to only one crop grown outside, said Baxter of the
Hamilton drug squad.

It used to be you could only get about 60 grams of weed from a plant but
with hydroponics you can get about half a kilo per plant, he said. And the
THC content in today's marijuana is just "wild" (up to four times as much)
as the smoke of yesteryear, Baxter said.

THC is tetrahydrocannabinol, the major psychoactive agent in marijuana.

Over the past decade indoor pot growers -- particularly in B.C. -- have
developed strains of marijuana with a THC count of 10%-20% or more compared
to the pot of the '60s and '70s, which averaged 5% or less.

"There has been a dramatic increase in hydroponically-grown pot over the
past several years," Baxter said. He said every year there are more and
more hydroponic equipment stores popping up.

"There's four now in Hamilton -- three years ago there weren't any." An
estimated 95% of the people growing pot in Southern Ontario are growing it
to sell it, said Toronto drug squad's Chase.

"That's obvious just from the sheer amount they grow -- there's no way it's
just for personal use because they couldn't smoke that much in a lifetime."

A lot of growers are supplying bike gangs who take care of the
distribution, he said.

The majority of pot busts in the past five years in this area involved
hydroponic operations.

$5M A YEAR

One of the larger busts in the Hamilton area involved a massive underground
hydroponic operation on a farm producing $5 million worth of pot a year.

The operation included surveillance cameras hidden in an elevated birdhouse.

Chase said growers are using closets, basements and even renovating their
homes with false walls in order to grow hydroponic pot. Others rent
apartments or set up storefront businesses with rooms they can use to grow
pot.

"Indoor grows have jumped 500%-600% in the past few years -- it's very
conducive to growing large amounts in the small areas and hi-tech,
efficient equipment is easily and readily bought in hydroponic stores or
hardware stores."

Chase said even though hydroponic store owners are legitimate, a lot of the
equipment they sell is used to grow pot, not vegetables and flowers.

"We've found the bills from hydroponic stores after busts and when we
approached the store owners they just played dumb," Chase said. "We have no
affiliation with any contraband," said Homegrown Hydroponics owner Cindy
Rea, whose family operates the largest hydroponic store chain in this area.

"We have a huge clientele of legitimate growers and contrary to popular
belief most people we deal with are home hobbyists who grow vegetables,
flowers and herbs for their own use and pleasure." Rea and her sister
Shelley opened Homegrown in 1985 and have since grown to 23 stores in the
Golden Triangle.

"We do not promote marijuana growth in any way and we never have," Shelley
Rea said.