B.C. MARIJUANA EXPERTISE IN HIGH DEMAND: POLICE

VANCOUVER -- A different kind of brain drain is underway in B.C. as
pot growers share their billions of dollars worth of skills with a
worldwide audience.

"We think they're exporting their expertise," said Supt. Paul Nadeau,
director of the RCMP's national drug branch.

"We've heard of it on an international scale."

Nadeau says he's in regular contact with law-enforcement counterparts
in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and all report
busting grow-ops with links, either direct or indirect, to organized
crime groups operating in B.C.

Ironically, it's enhanced border security in the post 9/11 U.S. that
is driving the information-sharing and possibly adding an unintended
front to America's "war on drugs."

Why cross the border from Canada with a load of high-grade marijuana
when you can find people willing and schooled in how to grow it for
you in the U.S.? That might be the scenario playing out in a recent
Washington state bust.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officers and police in King County took
down a large grow-op ring three weeks ago, arresting seven people and
seizing an estimated $5 million US of marijuana (4,991 plants) and
more than $250,000 in cash.

"Detectives believe all those houses raided are part of a large,
criminal organization with connections to British Columbia," said
Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County sheriffs department.

"This is basically the 'B.C. bud' transplanted to Washington,"
Urquhart said. "This is not the first time."

Urquhart was reluctant to expand on the nature of the connections and
the or ganization involved.

But when Nadeau was asked who in B.C. is exporting their skills, his
answer was simple --"Everybody," he said.

"Everybody (organized crime groups) is into it (marijuana production)
in B.C. There's a lot of money to be made."

A study released by the Fraser Institute in 2006 pegged the retail
value of marijuana grown in B.C. at $7 billion Cdn and estimated
there are at least 17,500 grow-ops in the province.

Julian Sher, award-winning author of The Road to Hell: How Biker
Gangs Conquered Canada, points to an example of intelligence sharing
in his book, where he documents how a Hells Angel acquired a recipe
for the drug speed in a California jail, then promptly exported that
recipe to colleagues in Australia for production.

"Technology, like drugs and money, flows very quickly in the
organized crime world," said Sher. "It stands to reason that B.C.,
where the grow-ops are the biggest cash crop, that technology flows
east and south."