ON THE REZ WITH MARIJUANA 'PLAYERS'

Lots of cash buys big-screen TVs and new cars

AKWESASNE - It could be a dorm room, a messy ode to the habits and practices
of young, single men. There are dirty dishes piled high in the sink, empty
cracker boxes on the counter, cupboards barren except for half-eaten sacks
of chips and cookies. There are beer caps on the ceiling, remnants of some
drinking game, and an ornate, marijuana-caked glass pipe sits in the centre
of the coffee table, next to the PlayStation and a very busy ashtray.
Posters of Hilary Duff and Tony Montana, Al Pacino's anti-hero of the
cocaine-and-violence movie Scarface, compete for space on the living room
wall.

On the sofa, Chan and Mondoo, 21 and 20 respectively, are absorbed in a game
of NHL 2003, Boston Bruins versus Colorado Avalanche. As they play, they
explain, through simple sentences and nonchalant shrugs, how roughly three
times a month for the last two years they have made $10,000 in total for
about 10 minutes' work. "We transport about 10 pounds at a time," Chan says.
"It's all green [marijuana], from Canada to the States. We won't transport
immigrants, or nothing. Those are my morals."

Ten years ago, smugglers traded in cigarettes. These days, though, it's
marijuana that makes money for Akwesasne's young people; employment is
difficult to find on the reserve, even harder off.

Chan, who still works two days a week at a "legitimate" job on the reserve,
got into smuggling after his hours were cut back -- the prospect of making
$1,000 off each pound of marijuana became too much to pass up. They
certainly aren't alone; one Akwesasne chief said Chan and Mondoo are "a
spotlight [on] what our youth is doing."

The evidence of their regular windfall isn't all that hard to see. The
house, which Chan and another roommate rent, may be of the mobile variety,
but the two are playing NHL hockey on one of two $3,000 big screen
televisions. There are new snowmobiles, boats, speed bikes and a shiny black
$35,000 Chevy Suburban in the yard. The Suburban is in good company on
Akwesasne roads: Cadillac SUVs are also popular, as are modified Ford
Excursions and even Hummers. Mondoo has big plans to build a house on a
piece of waterfront property nearby for his wife and child. That's way in
the future though; in a month's time, the two will be in Jamaica for a
two-week vacation with friends.

Chan and Mondoo (their nicknames; neither wanted to be identified) have no
compunction about smuggling marijuana from their community of Snye, about a
15-minute drive from Cornwall, Ont., on the Canadian side of the Akwesasne
reserve to the part of the reserve in New York State -- a mere two
kilometres from Chan's doorstep. They do it partly to afford a lifestyle
they say is otherwise unattainable in Akwesasne, and to stave off the
day-to-day monotony of living on a reserve.

And contrary to what any one of the five police forces that patrol the
reserve will tell you, Chan and Mondoo say smuggling marijuana doesn't
involve guns, violence or the moving of illegal aliens across the border.
For them, it's a matter of taking a duffle bag from one end of the reserve
to the other. "They make it sound like we're killing people," Mondoo says in
a disaffected baritone, as he eases a digital Paul Kariya down the ice.

He pauses, and then mutters a common sentiment in Akwesasne, where police
often have about as good a reputation as the various governments that employ
them.

"S--t, they put us here."

Marijuana is a perfect product, as far as smuggling is concerned. It usually
takes less than three months to produce, from seed to harvest, with less
effort than either cocaine or Ecstasy. Pound for pound, marijuana is
considerably more lucrative than a human being -- and quieter, too. A
shopping-bag full can be worth upwards of $12,000, and as Dick Ashlaw, agent
in charge at the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP), helpfully points out, "That
shopping bag can't testify against you in court."

Ashlaw, a thick-boned Texan with a deceptively pleasant way about him, knows
his American borders. He spent 14 years in El Paso, patrolling the divide
between the United States and Mexico, and all its miseries. He misses Texas
and will likely retire there in a few years, but until then he oversees the
American side of what he calls the "logistical nightmare" of the meandering
border that splits Akwesasne in two.

In the lobby of the border patrol headquarters in Massena, an unremarkable
upstate New York burg about 50 kilometres from Akwesasne, is an imposing,
Plexiglas-shielded model of Akwesasne and its surrounding area. At the
western point is the Moses-Sanders Power Dam, through which the border cuts
cleanly down the middle. The dam is an anomaly for a couple of reasons: It
is one of the few structures built in partnership between the U.S. and
Canadian governments, and it supplies power to both countries.

It is also the only place on the model where the border between the two
countries is remotely straight.

"From here west it's as straight as a dime, past the Great Lakes. It's the
49th parallel, all the way to the Pacific," Ashlaw says, his hands splayed
on the Plexiglas, lending a shadow to upstate New York. He draws a finger
east, highlighting the jagged line that makes its way toward Quebec. "This
here, well, it looks like someone was drunk, by the look of the way it
runs." In many cases, houses in Akwesasne are in different countries than
their backyards.

Were they playing football rather than patrolling an international border,
the USBP strategy would be best described as "flooding the zone." Ashlaw
concentrates manpower and resources on one specific area to root out a
problem so as to "gain control of an area," and push it elsewhere. It is an
approach used against drugs, weapons and just about anything else that can
be smuggled. It is the technique employed on the U.S.-Mexico border. Agents
focus on one smuggling hot spot, so that the trouble moves on.

The football lexicon is apt, it seems. Ashlaw sees smuggling as something of
a game. "It's like playing hide-and-seek when you're a kid. When you learn
all the good hiding places, it's easy to find them. When they change them,
it takes you a while to find them again. It's a never-ending circle."

And how is the game going in Akwesasne? "I don't think we have control of
that area."

For the most part, Ashlaw says, the smuggling of aliens is a thing of the
past. After 9/11, "our apprehension of undocumented aliens dropped right off
the chart. Since Sept. 11, we haven't caught as many as we did in 2001. It
just stopped. But our marijuana seizures went from ounces to tons. Lots of
cash, lots of drugs, no people."

The reasons behind the change are both serious and practical. The native
population from the United States and Canada represented a big chunk of the
work force that helped build the Twin Towers, and many were from Akwesasne.
According to Ashlaw, after 9/11, smuggling people was no longer seen as a
victimless crime; one of those aliens might be linked to the likes of
al-Qaeda.

As for the prevalence of Canadian-grown marijuana in the United States,
according to a recent U.S. Department of State report, U.S. law enforcement
seized 48,087 pounds of marijuana along the U.S.-Canada border in 2002,
nearly double the amount of the year before. A host of organized crime
syndicates brings a steady flow of high-quality marijuana into Akwesasne
from Quebec and Ontario. One older smuggler on the reserve says he deals
mostly with Asian gangs, though he has done business with the Hells Angels
as well. Supply of the prized, potent marijuana renowned in the United
States is never a problem, Chan says.

Ashlaw rolls his eyes grandly, and leans back in his chair when asked what
he thinks of Canadian drug laws regarding marijuana.

"Job security," he answers, with perfect timing.

Peter Garrow, Akwesasne's director of education, often winces before opening
a newspaper, because he knows he will usually see something about smuggling.
"[Smuggling] has a detrimental effect on the community as a whole," he says.
"The youth are being used in the trade. It permeates a sense of not thinking
of the future, not having a value system. It gives the community a bad
name."

After a weary pause, Mr. Garrow exhales through his nose and in one short
sentence, spat out with frustration, he sums up the allure of bringing drugs
from one place on the reserve to another. "There's a lot of money involved."

Sitting in his deep leather La-Z-Boy, Gator says he could tell you
specifically where all that pot came from, just by looking at it. He prefers
the stuff from Montreal. He is a veteran smuggler, though he doesn't like
the word. He prefers "player," and he is high up on the scale, as far as
players are concerned. He is known by his reputation as a man who runs a
tight crew, but who prefers to make connections among buyers, sellers and
transporters, for a fee. Like chez Chan, his house isn't much to look at --
unfinished facade with stacks of masonry lying on flapping sheet plastic --
but inside it looks like something out of a catalogue.

The hardwood floors are freshly varnished. There are leather couches and
another one of those enormous, all-consuming televisions. There are the
requisite powerful vehicles in the yard. His younger children could do laps
in the hot tub in the adjacent den.

Everything smells new, as this part of the house is an extension of his
older one. You'd think Gator should be happy, but he isn't really. He says
Akwesasne is "too much like jail," and realizes his lifestyle is ultimately
"destructive." Despite this, he will never leave here and probably won't
stop smuggling.

Plus, he's bored.

Short, wiry and effusive, with dark hair and eyes filled with distracted
intensity, Gator (a pseudonym) talks in quick, expletive-laden jabs,
squirming with energy as he does so. His restlessness has led him to start
his own landscaping company recently, just for something to do. He didn't go
to the bank to get a loan. Indeed, he doesn't keep his money in a bank. No,
the whole operation was bankrolled with cash earned through years of
smuggling.

By his own account, he has more money than he knows what to do with,
testimony not so much to a good work ethic as the profitability of moving
marijuana. "Back in the day, you had to do it for a living to get nice
stuff," he says, shifting his weight around in the La-Z-Boy. "Today, you
have to do it once. One time. You do it twice a year, you're set."

Being "set." It is what Gator (and Mondoo and Chan, and most smugglers in
general) profess to crave. Not on the reserve, though, since no one cares
about wealth there. "Power, money, none of it means s--t. There's no class
system on the reserve," Gator says.

Instead, they buy expensive cars and live extravagantly off the reserve,
when they visit Cornwall and neighbouring Massena in New York State, or
especially Montreal and Toronto. Gator is proud of a Christmas excursion to
Montreal, a three-day partying binge, during which he says he rented nine
rooms at the downtown Delta Hotel for his family and friends. "I blew
$15,000," he says proudly, pausing for effect. "U.S."

"It's just so that you can walk into a bar and people say, 'Hey, there he
is.' It makes you feel good. You can be the guy they talk about. When I'm in
Cornwall, I can be anyone I like."

By his own count, he has been to jail eight times since the late '80s for a
variety of smuggling-related charges and had a long, all-too-common problem
with using the products he smuggled. "I was on the s--t, I was wasting my
life in a trailer, you know?" He laughs. "I was making a hundred grand a
f---ing week, but I blew it all! I partied it all!"

He is also wanted in the United States. Going to the States would mean
risking capture -- an inconvenience, since he has to cross the U.S.-Canada
border to get to Cornwall, or anywhere else on the reserve, for that matter.
When he leaves his house, it isn't usually by car, but by boat, or
snowmobile, over the water to Cornwall, where he keeps a couple of nice
cars.

He says he is paranoid a lot of the time and fatalistic when it comes to the
future, fully expecting to get thrown in jail again at some point. He has a
yard full of motorized toys, but can't do much other than race them on the
river, or around the enormous dirt track that touches a stand of trees at
the back of his property.

So he makes money -- a lot of it -- partly to finance the renovations to his
house, partly to pay for the next outing to Toronto and partly to make sure
his children have enough money so they don't fall into the same, tempting
trap as he did. These days, it's easy, he says, because he uses a broker to
set up deals for others.

"Today, anybody can do it," he says, laughing ruefully. "Any Native American
can walk down the street in Montreal and get anything. You can go into New
York City, and you can f---in' just walk into a motel and ask the doorman,
'Where can I get some weed, man?' And he'll hook you up. Then the guy says,
'Where you from, Akwesasne?' 'Can you get me a hundred pounds?' It's that
easy."

Easy as it is, smuggling stops with him, Gator says. His swears his children
will never see the inside of a smuggling boat, or know what a hundred pounds
of marijuana feels like when it's packed tight inside a duffle bag. "I went
to jail. They won't."

"I don't get any assistance from anybody," Gator says, defending a lifestyle
he admits he doesn't particularly like. "I don't let my woman go on welfare,
or anything. I been like that since five years now. I pay cash for
everything I buy.

"To me, it's just a game. 'Ah, I made a hundred grand this week. Ahh, I lost
a hundred grand last week.' It's s--t like that, you know? And it's a
gamble. It's a big risk, you know?"

Mondoo doesn't do drugs. He concentrates only on video hockey as Chan takes
a pull of that glass pipe. Chan, meanwhile, says marijuana is the farthest
he ever went, or will go.

Chan has his own code for what he will and won't bring over the border. "It
sounds gay, but I don't want to bring cocaine [to the reserve]," he says, a
little embarrassed at the admission. "I don't want it to go up Akwesasne's
nose. There's enough already, I don't want to bring more."

That said, they aren't even smuggling, according to Chan. "It's free trade,"
he says.

"It's called fundraising!" Mondoo adds loudly.

"We're not smugglers," Chan says again. "We're just cool dudes who like to
hang out and make money."

Neither will say when they will go out next, or exactly where they make
pick-ups and drop-offs. It certainly won't be tonight; there's a girlfriend
on the phone and more electronic hockey to play.