BRITISH COLUMBIA TOLERATES MARIJUANA IN ITS MIDST

VANCOUVER, B.C. - 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
Columbia, 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 here,
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 here, 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 here 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 here, 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 here 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.

With prices for ``B.C. Bud'' double on the American 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 here 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 in September, Canada's two national
newspapers, The Globe and Mail and The National Post, have
editorialized in favor of decriminalizing marijuana for medical uses.
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.''

In a survey here in May for The Vancouver Sun, 56 percent of the people
agreed that provincial courts should ``ignore the Americans and hand
out sentences we think are appropriate.'' A virtually identical
percentage said that possession of marijuana should not be a criminal
offense.

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.

When smugglers are cornered at the border, the smart ones sprint north.
Even so, the border is lightly patrolled and few people are caught,
compared with the intensely watched U.S. border with Mexico. In the
federal fiscal year ending last September, U.S. Customs Service agents
seized 50 times as much marijuana coming in from Mexico, 988,310
pounds, as they seized coming in from Canada, 19,753 pounds.

This year, the Vancouver police have raided marijuana growing
operations at twice the rate of last year. But they are careful to
publicize their raids as efforts to break up vicious Asian gangs, to
protect children from fires in houses with faulty wiring, or to break
up smuggling rings.

``We have houses burning down, we have explosions, we have organized
crime in our neighborhoods,'' said Sgt. Chuck Doucette, the Mountie
spokesman here. Noting that anonymous tips about grow houses have
flooded his office this year, he added: ``We cannot keep up with the
calls.''

Still, decriminalization for casual use seems to be a reality here in
Vancouver.

Last May, hundreds of people gathered for a marijuana ``smoke-in'' on
the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, five blocks from the British
Columbia premier's office. Vancouver police ignored the event.