CANADA'S 'MOST VALUABLE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCT'

'Dirty, Well-Lit Marijuana Trade Is Rich, Expanding, Unstoppable,' Magazine
Says

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 called Inside Dope: Canada's dirty,
well-lit marijuana trade is rich, expanding ... and unstoppable.

"With prices reaching $2,700 a pound wholesale, the trade takes in
somewhere between $4 billion (U.S.) nationwide and $7 billion just in the
province of British Columbia, depending on which side of the law you believe."

John Winter, president of B.C.'s 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."

A few of the Forbes story's facts 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 yesterday 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 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, don't bear that out. There has been little
public-opinion research on Canadians' attitudes toward marijuana growers.
However, 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 in doubt, however, as Parliament is expected to shut down
for Christmas before it can pass.)

And police forces' response to marijuana growers has grown tougher. In
Ontario last year, for example, police made 1,340 grow-operation 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. They 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,"
Laviolette said. "In some cases they've gone up hundreds of per cent from
year 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 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 Canadian at yesterday's exchange rate.

Growers in B.C. say they're lucky if they get $1,800 Canadian per pound for
the finest-grade marijuana. Low-quality bud often fetches less than $900
per pound.

The story also 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."