FAMILY-SIZE PLANTATIONS HOUSE POT ON THE PLATEAU

This is the third of four stories examining changing attitudes toward
marijuana in Quebec. A companion report may also be seen today on Global
television's evening and late-night newscasts, and canada.com is sponsoring
a readers' debate on the subject.

Pull back the heavy flannel blanket and there they are, basking under
1,500-watt bulbs.

The effort at concealment is half-hearted, but even if you didn't peek into
the makeshift greenhouse under the stairs, the tangy smell is a telltale
sign marijuana plants are nearby.

It's a small-scale plantation for now, just a pair of adolescent cannabis
stalks still a month or so away from harvest.

We're in a non-descript ground-floor apartment in the Plateau, a few
minutes walk from the neon and bustle of St. Laurent Blvd.

A woman we'll call Trudy is in the midst of setting up her grow operation,
one of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of similar installations that have
put Quebec behind only British Columbia among Canada's biggest
pot-producing provinces.

She figures her little garden will yield enough marijuana for her own
consumption, as well as some extra to sell to friends and make a few bucks.

"This is definitely a mom-and-pop thing. I'm not trying to get rich doing
it, although that would be easy enough, I suppose," said Trudy, a petite
woman in her 30s with a mischievous smile.

Countless apartments, bungalows and derelict buildings in and around
Montreal are used as "grow-ops" by enterprising farmers ready to supply an
ever-available market.

Despite the hundreds of operations busted each year in Quebec and the
concerted law-enforcement effort at controlling pot, its production seems
to be on the rise.

Police report that whereas the province used to import marijuana from other
countries, now Quebec pot is so plentiful that it's being exported south of
the border, where it can fetch as much as $5,000 U.S. per pound.

"Since 1993, when Quebec really started exporting pot on a significant
scale, we've seen a 700-per-cent increase in the number of marijuana
seizures," said Inspector Fred Foley of the Surete du Quebec's
organized-crime squad.

A recent survey conducted by SOM Recherches et Sondages for The Gazette and
Global TV found 40 per cent of Montrealers (or about 800,000 people) have
smoked marijuana. And 32 per cent of those who have smoked have done so in
the last six months.

"We're asking a question on something that is illegal," said SOM analyst
Guy Larocque. "That 40 per cent would tell someone over the phone that
they've smoked is revealing." The heaviest users are young people; about
six in 10 respondents 18 to 35 have tried it.

There is no class distinction among smokers (47 per cent of those earning
less than $15,000 admit smoking; that figure is 58 per cent for those
making more than $75,000), and the more schooling you have, the more likely
you are to have smoked.

The poll also found a large majority of Montrealers feel the war on drugs
has failed to control marijuana.

According to the most recent SQ statistics, 316,812 marijuana plants (about
four tons' worth) were seized in the first nine months of this year. A
total of 528,799 plants were destroyed by police in 2001.

There aren't any statistics for the city of Montreal for 2002, but in 2001,
federal statistics indicate 601 incidents of marijuana cultivation were
reported in this city.

Drug investigator Roch Cote, a Mountie who works with the Wolverine
anti-gang task force, remembers his surprise as a team of cops burst into a
small bungalow in the lower Laurentians recently and stormed into the
basement, guns drawn.

"There was this little old lady wearing her gardening gloves, and she was
doing cuttings off a huge marijuana plant," Cote said. "She said she was
just looking after the plants for a friend, and she did not even know what
they were."

Predictably, police didn't believe her. She was hauled off to the local
jail and charged with cultivating marijuana.

The woman, a grandmother in her mid-60s, later admitted to police she'd
been recruited to look after the grow-op.

Cote said it's a typical story:

"The biker gangs will recruit young people, retired people or people who
are unemployed or need money, and pay them to water their plants, look
after the crop and make sure no one takes it."

Investigators from the RCMP, SQ and city police all say they've noticed a
recent trend: organized-crime figures are pressuring "independent" growers
into selling to them.

That can mean threats, beatings or even setting fire to rival grow-ops, a
more and more common phenomenon.

One of the ways criminals track down unaffiliated growers is through
hydroponic supply shops, some of which have been infiltrated by outlaw
groups, Cote said.

Also, police are noticing that the large-scale outdoor plantations of the
past are being replaced by indoor operations and smaller outdoor fields.

"You used to see 1,000 plants in fields or forests. Now you might see 50
plantations of 20 plants. That way, they don't lose as much if we spray the
field (with pesticides)," SQ Sgt. Jean Audette said.

Police also say their investigations have been hampered by court
proceedings, where the nature of their inquiries and their eradication
methods are revealed in testimony.

Organized crime has updated its methods accordingly, the SQ's Foley said.
If the cops check power meters for unusually high consumption, the crooks
get generators. If the SQ gets airborne infrared sensors to identify
suspect buildings, the growers find sophisticated ways to defeat them -
like making a building within a building.

So why is this province a major centre for pot growing?

RCMP drug expert Sgt. Mark Pearson said part of the story is the natural
spread of marijuana cultivation, which started becoming a large-scale
phenomenon on the West Coast in the early 1980s.

"Since then, technology and know-how have spread eastward across the
country," said Pearson, who has worked in drug sectors across Canada.

Other reasons, said the SQ's Audette, result from Quebec's geography.

"The St. Lawrence Valley is a good place for agriculture. We're close to
the U.S. border, and the increase in production pretty much mirrors the
rise in prominence of the criminal gangs in the province," he said.

Police also complain that penalties for pot growers are fairly lenient.

There's also the profit motive.

Drug investigators estimate the average yield of a single cannabis plant is
about 2.5 ounces of pot (or 70 grams) per harvest. Some clandestine
hydroponic growers boast of yields up to 400 grams per plant. In outdoor
operations, there's one harvest a year. In hydroponic ones, growers can get
three crops annually.

Police experts estimate 200 plants can yield about 30 pounds of pot per
crop. At a street price of $2,500 per pound, that represents $75,000.

In the 1,837 grow-ops the SQ investigated last year, the average seizure
netted 400 plants.

It's Friday night in the Plateau: cloning time. Trudy's friend, whom we'll
call Alan, is snipping cuttings from the plants, dipping the stems in a
rooting solution and planting them in earth. Two plants will soon become 10
or 20 or 50.

Trudy doesn't have a criminal record, works full time and shares the
apartment with her dog and calico cat, whose fondness for nibbling on pot
plants prompted her to jury-rig a chicken-wire fence in the crawlspace.

Police say the vast majority of pot plantations are run by organized crime,
although there's no easy way to measure the contribution of
cottage-industry growers.

The Surete's Audette says people who supply pot are, knowingly or not, part
of the problem.

"The market exists; like it or not, it is controlled by organized crime,
and anyone who is involved in that market, whether they realize it or not,
are supporting these groups," he said.

Trudy and her friends say they have no ties to organized crime. They have
no interest in selling pot to school kids, nor would they peddle the stuff
on the streets, she said.

"It's just a plant. I smoke pot, so why not grow it?"

Legalize It? Some Pros and Cons

Readers of last week's story on the legal debate over marijuana offer their
thoughts on legalization and decriminalization. The opinions come from the
Canada.com Web site.

Enough! Legalize it outright and take charge of the quality control,
distribution, and profits (not to mention the taxes, replacing those lost
because of people who quit smoking cigarettes).

Don't legalize weed - not until my plants are done. I plan to sell them to
your kids and make a fortune off it while the government could easily be
regulating it and taxing it! And this time I plan on putting in some
different chemicals with harmful agents to make your kids dumb! Get the
picture?

Do not legalize marijuana. I have a 16-year-old who has put us through hell
the last couple of years because of his smoking pot. For who think it
doesn't affect teens or that it's no big deal, try talking to a parent who
has a child using it.

Why should someone have to smoke pot to feel good? The world is a beautiful
place and life is precious. Why ruin such God-given jewels? Go to school,
get educated and leave marijuana to grow by the road like the other killer
weeds.

All drugs, including heroin, should be legalized, controlled and taxed. The
war on drugs has cost a fortune in money and human lives, but has stopped
no one from taking drugs. Worse, it has spawned a huge black market, making
criminals like the Hells Angels rich and powerful.