'ARMY OF ORDINARY FOLKS' BEHIND B.C. POT BOOM, SAYS MAGAZINE

Forbes Says Marijuana Now Canada's Top Crop, Downplays Criminal Links

Forbes, the U.S. business magazine, has chosen to celebrate Canada's
economy on its latest cover, but it's a segment of the economy that
chamber of commerce officials and Canadian law aren't as happy to extol.

The marijuana industry "has emerged as Canada's most valuable agricultural
product -- bigger than wheat, cattle or timber," Forbes's Silicon Valley
bureau chief writes in a cover feature headlined "Inside Dope: Canada's
dirty, well-lit marijuana trade is rich, expanding ... and unstoppable."

"With prices reaching $2,700 US a pound [$5,940 per kilogram]
wholesale, the trade takes in somewhere between $4 billion US
nationwide and $7 billion just in the province of British Columbia,
depending on which side of the law you believe," the article says.

John Winter, president of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, said yesterday
he hadn't seen the Forbes article, but he wondered how the publicity
might affect B.C.'s investment climate.

"If you're a potential investor in British Columbia, you're going to
look at many factors and, presumably, that is now one of the factors
you might look at. Whether it's considered to be negative or whether
it's indicative of entrepreneurship -- I'm not sure whether it's
considered negative or positive."

The story counters Canadian law enforcement officials' frequent
contention that the industry is dominated by organized gangs and
motorcycle outlaws.

"And who are these growers?" the magazine asks. "Not a small coterie
of drug lords who could be decimated with a few well-targeted
prosecutions, but an army of ordinary folks."

Hardy then quotes Robert Smith, a furniture store owner in Grand
Forks.

"I know at least a hundred [of them], 20 years old to 70," says
Smith.

"Of the money coming through my door, 15 per cent to 20 per cent comes
from cannabis -- we'd be on welfare without it."

A few of the Forbes story's figures might not be so recognizable to
readers who actually live north of the border.

Helmut Pastrick, chief economist at the Credit Union Central of B.C.,
said in an interview that it's impossible to estimate accurately just
how big the marijuana economy actually is.

"It's an underground sector," said Pastrick. "By definition, it's just
impossible to measure it accurately. These numbers are bandied about.
I've seen higher numbers."

B.C.'s economy is worth some $140 billion Cdn annually; farm cash
receipts in the province -- the amount the farmers actually make from
selling produce and livestock -- total just $2.2 billion.

According to Statistics Canada, forestry and logging were worth a
national total of $5.7 billion in 2002, while crops totalled $8.66
billion and livestock brought in $3.98 billion.

The Forbes story didn't impress RCMP drug specialists.

"I was flabbergasted when I heard about it," said Sgt. Paul
Laviolette, a project co-ordinator with the Criminal Intelligence
Service of Canada.

Comparing Canadian laws and attitudes toward marijuana with those of
Americans, the article says, "The Canadians are even more
cannabis-tolerant. Although they have not legalized the drug, they are
loath to stomp out the growers."

The facts, however, just don't bear that out. There has been little
public opinion research on ordinary Canadians' attitudes toward
marijuana growers, but advocates of looser marijuana laws, and the
little research that exists, seem to suggest that while Canadians are
willing to overlook pot possession and consumption, growing is another
matter.

One of the few polls, conducted in Vancouver, showed a large majority
of the 400 respondents said growing marijuana for money should be illegal.

Governments' response to grow operations has been far from
lackadaisical. The federal Liberals' proposed legislation to ease
penalties for possession of marijuana would actually increase
penalties for growers. (That legislation is now in doubt, however, as
Parliament is expected to shut down for Christmas before it can pass.)

And police forces' response to marijuana growers has only grown
tougher. In Ontario last year, police made 1,340 grow-op busts, up
from just 129 in 1999.

City police forces across the country have harnessed scarce resources
to create "grow-busters" teams that use aggressive tactics to shut
down growers. And forces across Canada have banded together to swap
strategies and intelligence about marijuana growers.

"There's more than twice as many busts in just the past few years,"
said Laviolette. "In some cases they've gone up hundreds of per cent
from 2000 to 2001 to 2002."

Canada's judges, however, have decided many important cases lately in
favour of easing restrictions on marijuana possession, and police
often complain that provincial court judges regularly let convicted
growers off with little penalty.

Forbes editors could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The story's arithmetic is also somewhat suspect. The Forbes piece says
wholesale prices for marijuana reach "$2,700 a pound wholesale" in
U.S. dollars, or some $3,600 a pound Cdn at yesterday's exchange rate.

Growers in B.C. say they're lucky if they get $1,800 Cdn per pound for
the finest grade marijuana. "Schwag," or low-quality bud, often
fetches less than half that.

The package of stories related to the Forbes cover feature includes
one about Advanced Nutrients, a multimillion-dollar B.C. fertilizer
company that supplies marijuana growers.