POT PLANT BUSINESS IS SMOKING

New Specialty Emerges: Female Plant Seedlings

A budding new facet of Quebec's booming marijuana industry is showing
underground growers the value of getting back to their roots.

Covert marijuana production has become such a large-scale industry in this
province that it's now possible to make a living supplying other illicit
growers with tiny cannabis seedlings, which are said to fetch $5 to $8 each
on the black market.

In a recent raid, police discovered 500 2-week-old seedlings stacked in a
bedroom closet.

It's believed that their owner had no intention of growing them to
bud-producing maturity.

"We've found there are people out there now who are earning a lot of money
doing this, selling seedlings to bigger growers," said Roch Cote, an RCMP
drug investigator who is attached to the provincial anti-biker task force.

Cote was part of a trio of police officers who held a workshop on Quebec's
marijuana trade at World Forum 2002, a global conference on drugs and
dependencies that's taking place this week at the Palais des Congres.

The market for the seedlings has arisen partly to satisfy the ever-growing
demands of Quebec's illegal marijuana farming, which has reached industrial
proportions.

It has also benefited from plant genetics.

There is a slightly better than 50-per-cent chance that marijuana seeds
will produce a male plant, which won't bloom and doesn't have enough
tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC, marijuana's psychoactive ingredient) in its
leaves to be profitable.

Therefore, pot growers who start with seeds often find themselves culling
about half their plants in order to exclusively grow female plants, which
produce blooms or "buds" that can then be smoked.

"If you have a female plant, you can basically make an unlimited number of
cuttings. A lot of people sell the cuttings now rather than grow them to
maturity," said Sgt. Mark Pearson, another World Forum panelist, who
supervises the Mounties' drug unit in Kingston, Ont.

Some of the pot seedlings come from small-scale producers who don't want
the hassle or the risk of developing the plants to maturity.

"It's something we're seeing more of - you can keep the seedlings in a much
smaller space," said Cote, adding about half of the province's pot
production takes place indoors, a proportion that increases slightly each year.

Sometimes you don't even need underworld connections to buy the seedlings.

"Occasionally, our investigations have found that stores that supply people
with hydroponic equipment will also sell people the seedlings. It's a quick
way to make cash," Cote said.

The owner of a hydroponic-equipment store in Saguenay is awaiting trial on
cultivation charges for selling seedlings to an undercover police officer.

Police investigators said organized criminal groups - which largely control
marijuana production in Quebec - are also beginning to shy away from the
usual practice of hiring people to supervise "grow-ops."

For years now, biker groups have targeted people who don't have criminal
records, luring them with promises of easy cash.

In one recent raid, police surprised a 65-year-old grandmother trimming
marijuana cuttings in the basement of a grow house in the Laurentians.

But a law-enforcement crackdown on illegal greenhouses has prompted
criminal groups like the outlaw biker gangs to shift away from setting up
their own operations.

Recently, many have started buying from independent growers - who operate
with the approval of the bikers - and either sell or export the grass at a
large profit.