HOME-GROWN DRUG BUSINESS BOOMS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- As Canada's health department looks
this fall for a reliable supplier of almost 1 million marijuana
cigarettes for clinical trials, some Canadians say they need to look
no further than "British Colombia," where relaxed attitudes about
smoking marijuana have helped turn the province into a major North
American producer for some of the drug's strongest strains.

While Mexicans can grow bales of the stuff on plantations, cold
weather Canadians have genetically tweaked their indoor plants to
reach potencies of 10 times the levels of the Woodstock-era grass,
putting it on a par with prized Jamaican weed.

Now, marijuana is estimated to be a $1 billion-a-year export, right
behind lumber and tourism as the leading business in British Columbia.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police estimate that there are about 9,000
"grow operations" in the Vancouver area. Across the bay from
Vancouver, in the city of Nanaimo, the Mounties estimate that there
are 1,000 residential grow operations, about one every two blocks.

"In my neighborhood, it's one house in 10," said Chris, a 40-year-old
grower. "I walk around late at night, after work, and I can smell it,
from the fans."

Increasingly, marijuana turns up in the oddest places. In May, a
newspaper reported that a man had been caught growing plants in a
garage of a house he rented from the attorney general of the province.

On Aug. 12, two Canadian men wearing military uniforms were arrested
in Blaine, Wash., after crossing the border in two Canadian military
trucks: The U.S. Customs Service said one truck was loaded with five
duffel bags containing 240 pounds of marijuana.

The concentration of marijuana growing stems from many factors.

Judges, mirroring local public opinion, tend to give lenient
punishments. An arrest for growing 500 plants, the average size of a
bust there, often yields an $800 fine -- compared with a short prison
sentence in California or a life sentence in Texas.

"I paid my partner's fine, $500, with money from the business. It's a
business," said Buck, an engaging 30-year-old in a polo shirt. He said
he talked his way out of any charges when a policeman his age
discovered his grow operation earlier this year.

A study by the local newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, found that of 112
people convicted of growing marijuana in the late 1990s, one quarter
served no jail time and paid no fines and that 58 percent paid fines
of less than $1,800. Fewer than one in seven served any jail time.

Technical Support

With prices for "B.C. Bud" double on the U.S. side of the border,
marijuana is indeed lucrative in a province with some of North
America's highest tax rates, stagnant economic growth and high
unemployment among young people.

Vancouver also offers the technical support a serious grower needs.
With cultivators approaching their indoor marijuana farming with the
solemnity of Japanese bonsai gardeners, the number of stores
specializing in hydroponic gardening equipment mushroomed in Vancouver
during the 1990s, from three to 30. Growing plants without soil, in a
mix of rock pellets and nutrient-rich water, requires an array of
electric gadgets -- from 1,000-watt lamps to cooling systems to
special systems that neutralize telltale odors before
ventilation.

At one store, Jon's Plant Factory, the offerings do not seem geared to
growing hydroponic tomatoes. In the electronic section, there is a
$1,400 sophisticated pager, sort of an electronic plant sitter that
can alert the long distance gardener of system failures -- water
pumps, air fans, fertilizer drips -- even if an intruder has opened a
window or a door.

Referring to complex growing systems, Chris, an experienced
electrician and plumber, said during a store tour: "Some people will
sell their feeding schedules for $6,000."

Cheaper technical support comes from Marc Emery, Canada's leading
cannabis capitalist. Emery offers 350 varieties of marijuana seeds
through his Web site and publishes Cannabis Culture, a magazine of
gardening tips. Earlier this year, he started two Internet media
productions, Pot Radio and Pot-TV Internetwork, a 24-hour online
broadcast of marijuana news.

For marijuana broadcasters like Emery, the news from Canada this
summer has been encouraging.

In separate rulings in late July, Ontario Court of Appeal judges ruled
against employee drug testing and invalidated Canada's law against
marijuana possession. In the latter case, Judge Marc Rosenberg
suspended his ruling for a year to give Parliament time to rewrite the
law. His ruling, however, immediately granted Terry Parker, a
44-year-old Toronto man, the right to smoke marijuana to help control
his epilepsy.

With Parliament scheduled to return this month, Canada's two national
newspapers, the Globe and Mail and the National Post, have
editorialized in favor of decriminalizing marijuana for medical uses.
Anne McLellan, Canada's justice minister and a member of Parliament
for the governing Liberal Party, has said such decriminalization "is a
legitimate question."

On that subject, Canadians, as usual, are cautiously looking at the
United States.

"Outright legalization would cause serious trouble with the United
States," the Globe and Mail editorialized after the Ontario decision.
Calling for decriminalization, a path favored by the Canadian
Association of Chiefs of Police, the newspaper concluded: "Therefore,
Canada should follow its historical nature and take a middle path."

With 61 seriously ill people authorized by Health Canada to smoke
marijuana for medicinal purposes, the government plans to start
clinical trials of marijuana next year.