Copyright: 2004 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: sunletters@png.canwest.com
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Jonathan Fowlie, Vancouver Sun
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

EX-CONS SET TO CASH IN WITH GROW-OP GAME

Two Men Hope Success Of Board Game Will Put Them Back On The Straight And
Narrow

VANCOUVER -- Two reformed criminals have teamed up to create a
Monopoly-style board game where players fight the authorities, and each
other, in an attempt to build a thriving business in marijuana-growing
operations.

The idea, Vancouver-based game creators say, is the brainchild of a
22-year-old who was busted after a brief career as a real-life marijuana
grower.

Company officials will only identify the 22-year-old as "The Rabbit"
because of his request for anonymity, but say he came up with the idea
while in jail, and that he worked to make it a reality once he emerged.

Among the people helping to bring the game to market is Kevan Garner, a
former Vancouver stock promoter who pleaded guilty in a Florida court to
two counts of laundering $1 million. Undercover police officers operating
the sting had told Garner the money he was laundering was the proceeds of
cocaine trafficking.

After he was caught, Garner agreed to cooperate with authorities by
testifying against a fellow Vancouver stock promoter who was caught in the
same sting. Nevertheless, in 2003, he was sentenced to 87 months in prison.

From his Vancouver office Friday, Garner said that in May his sentence was
reduced to the time he had already served, and that he was released and
deported after having been in prison for about 15 months.

In the past month, Garner said, he has met with the RCMP to do two speaking
engagements about his case -- including one on business ethics to the MBA
graduating class at UBC -- and that he hopes to do others in the coming year.

"For me, it's kind of a cleansing experience to tell my story," Garner said.

"It was a terrible thing that happened," he continued. "If I can save
anyone the pain I went through by making a bad mistake, I think it's all
worthwhile."

Garner said he became involved in the Grow Op Game when an acquaintance,
Ivan Solomon, approached him with the idea.

Solomon, who has put together successful board games in the past, had been
approached by the so-called "Rabbit" with the idea, and thought it was
"pretty hot", especially since the 22-year-old wanted to use it to go clean.

"This is a guy who has been on the wrong side," Solomon said in an
interview Friday, "and now has an opportunity to take this entrepreneurial
spirit, and maybe make a whole bunch of money on the other side."

The Rabbit is not a partner in the company, but will receive royalties from
sales of the game, Solomon said.

Solomon added the game is not intended to glorify or trivialize growing
operations, but rather to demonstrate how difficult they are to establish,
and how easy it is to run into problems.

"Most of them screw up," he said, pointing out that in the game, most of
the players usually end up getting busted.

"It really is meant to let people know that the road to criminal activity
is not that easy," Garner added.

The game comes in a tube and is played on a laminated board that is split
into four neighbourhoods; Vancouver's west side, the North Shore, the east
side and the suburbs.

Players must rent houses, garages or other places, which range in price
according to size and neighbourhood, where they can grow crops.

Before they can start making any money, however, players need to buy clones
to work the crops, and equipment to maintain them, while evading the "grow
busters."

Amid this, the "Karma Kard" spaces issue good news, such as the card that
tells you your buyer is giving you $10,000 and is leasing you a Hummer, or
bad news, like the one that says you owe $5,000 to pay for a hit man to
deal with the neighbour who "rats on you."

The winner of the game, Solomon said, is the player who ends up with the
most money.

Solomon said he and the company he set up to do the game, The Bored Games
Corporation, made 2,000 copies of the game, which it has mostly been
selling from the its website, www.growopgame.com, and select stores in
Vancouver such as the New Amsterdam Cafe on West Hastings.

The game, which retails for $39.95, went on sale about mid-week, Solomon
said, and by Friday the company had already sold about 500 copies.

"If we're lucky it will catch on," Solomon said, well aware the novelty of
the game could end up as merely a flash in the pan, but also hopeful there
will be enough demand to justify a second production run.