HOMEGROWN INDUSTRY THRIVES

Another day, another grow-op busted. And tomorrow there'll be
another.

As Ontario's homegrown marijuana industry hums and thrives, shipping
its potent product across the U.S. border by the tonne, some things
don't much change for the Toronto police drug squad.

On the average working day, citywide, one grow-op is dismantled. And
that likely represents just a fraction of the cultivation afoot, says
the squad's Detective Sergeant Dave Malcolm, who oversees street drug
enforcement.

"The numbers haven't decreased one bit in the past three years," he
said yesterday. "We're pretty much up to par."

Another constant, he says, is the preferred destination of all that
weed, much of which is produced hydroponically, calling for
sophisticated systems to distribute light, heat, fertilizer and water.

"The majority of the product that is grown in Ontario, we believe,
goes south," Det. Sgt. Malcolm said.

Police in British Columbia and Quebec have long seen the same traffic
pattern, grounded in the same twofold logic: the money and the risk.

Half a kilo of high-grade marijuana retails for about $2,000 in
Ontario these days. In New York City, that same pressed brick fetches
about $6,000.

As for penalties, the difference is also profound. When seven
Canadians pleaded guilty four years ago to operating the biggest
grow-op in this country's history, inside the former Molson brewery in
Barrie, they received sentences ranging from house arrest to five
years and all have since been released.

In many parts of the United States they could have received life
terms, even though the gardeners were minor players.

By any yardstick, Canadian marijuana is a big industry.

Two years ago the RCMP estimated it produced somewhere between 1,400
and 3,500 tonnes annually, with B.C., Ontario and Quebec accounting
for about 90 per cent of the load.

Another perennial is the role of organized crime.

In B.C., marijuana grow-ops are the largest single revenue source for
gangsters, Prof. Darryl Plecas of the University College of the Fraser
Valley said recently.

Det. Sgt. Malcolm says that's also true in Ontario, where crime
syndicates - particularly Asian ones - commonly prey upon recently
arrived immigrants and refugees.

Outlaw bikers, too, have always been linked to the drug trade, and not
just to clandestinely produced marijuana. Ecstasy and methamphetamine,
being churned out by the barrel-load, remains overwhelmingly an
organized-crime phenomenon.

At the same time, a few things have changed in the marijuana trade,
Det. Sgt. Malcolm says.

"Criminals are adjusting themselves. When we started several years
ago, we were finding thousands of plants growing in a home. Now there
are more houses and fewer plants - maybe a few hundred or less."

Smaller crops - for example, a flourishing grow-op typically produces
three crops a year, devouring electricity by the kilowatt-hour - are
easier to conceal.

And that's especially true if it's housed in an apartment that does
not have its own hydro meter, rather than in a house.

Close to half the grow-ops being dismantled in Toronto are now located
in apartments.

And with healthy marijuana plants worth at least $1,000 apiece, Det.
Sgt Malcolm said, "The profits are huge."