B.C. EXPORTS GROW-OP SKILLS

Marijuana-Cultivation Expertise Of B.C. Gangs Is Taking Root Around The World

A different kind of brain drain is under way 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," says RCMP
Superintendent Paul Nadeau, director of the Mounties' national drug
branch and the former head of Vancouver's drug section. "We've heard
of it on an international scale."

Nadeau says police counterparts in the U.S., Australia and New
Zealand all report busting grow-ops with links -- either direct or
indirect -- to organized crime groups operating in B.C.

Ironically, enhanced border security in a post-9/11 U.S. appears to
be driving the information-sharing -- and 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 may be the scenario that played out in a recent Washington state bust.

Drug Enforcement Agency officers and police in King County took down
a large grow-op ring three weeks ago, arresting seven people and
seizing almost 5,000 marijuana plants worth $5 million US 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 sheriff's department.

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

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

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

"Everybody [organized crime groups] is into it [marijuana production]
in B.C. There's a lot of money to be made," he said.

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

DEA Special Agent Adam Otte noted in Seattle District Court documents
that the seven Vietnamese-American suspects arrested in Washington
were seen at multiple grow-op locations.

"I believe they were an organized crime group of marijuana growers
who helped tend their associates' grows," Otte stated.

"It comes down to the business of huge profits," said Darryl Plecas,
University College of the Fraser Valley criminology professor and
author of the 2002 study Marihuana Operations in British Columbia.

"What's happening [in Washington State] is characteristic of
organized crime in general. They go wherever there's an opportunity,"
Plecas said.

Nor should it be surprising, says Julian Sher, award-winning author
of The Road to Hell: How Biker Gangs Conquered Canada.

Sher points to an example of intelligence sharing in his book when he
documents how a Hells Angel member acquired a recipe for the drug
speed in a California jail, then promptly exported the 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."

Toronto drug cop Insp. Dan Hayes highlighted the eastward flow in an
interview in 2005 when he blamed liberal sentences for convicted
growers in B.C. -- and the export of pot-growing savvy for an
explosion in the number of grow-ops in Toronto.

"They go to college on the West Coast and then bring their expertise
to Toronto," Hayes said.

Nadeau said at the time that many of Ontario's illicit growers were
British Columbians of Vietnamese descent who had relocated to that
province to grow marijuana in order to tap into a vast and growing
market of drug consumers on the U.S. East Coast.

In the United Kingdom, Portsmouth University criminology professor
Dr. Daniel Silverstone is researching migration patterns of
Vietnamese immigrants who control a "significant" portion of
marijuana production in that country to determine if domestic
grow-ops in Britain have links to B.C.

"It wouldn't surprise me ," Silverstone noted. "It may well have been
that certain individuals do travel [from Vietnam, to Canada then to Britain]."

A Thriving Industry

Marijuana cultivation in B.C. is a massive industry and massive
problem for citizens and police. The province accounts for 39 per
cent of all cultivation cases in Canada, more than any other
province. B.C.'s 79 grow-ops per 100,000 people is well over the
national average of 27. The street value of B.C. bud tops $7 billion.
B.C. growers produced 80,000 kilograms in 2003 and in the process
stole $3.2 million in hydro power.

Detection of grow-ops outpaces police forces' ability to deal with
them. B.C. RCMP get about 4,500 reports of grow-ops a year, but can
only bust 1,500 of the largest. -- From a 2006 Province story