POT SMOKERS HEAD FOR HIGH TIMES IN CANADA

* Marijuana growers left Netherlands to be in Vancouver, now known by
serious growers as best place to be

VANCOUVER - Steve, a 29-year-old marijuana grower, left the Netherlands for
Canada last year because even Europe's most liberal drug regime had become
too oppressive for him.

After being exposed by an angry landlord, he was arrested for growing 116
plants, sufficient to classify him as a major supplier. Only his charm, he
says, prevented him from facing charges that could have brought three months
in jail and a fine of about $25,000.

Steve's prowess in cannabis cultivation earned him the nickname "Stevie
Wonder" from the magazine High Times, the bible of pot smokers. Vancouver,
he says, has become the best place in the world for serious growers. The
police usually challenge only large operations, and growers who are charged
usually face only an average fine of $2,000.

"People can come here and lie and cheat and steal and not be bothered," he
says, switching on an exhaust fan that recirculates the heavy, sweet scent
of marijuana, keeping it from drifting out to suspicious passers-by. "It's
kind of scary but that's why I'm here."

Like the Netherlands before it, British Columbia is several years into an
experiment with the effective decriminalization of marijuana. While
possession of pot technically remains an offense, it is virtually
unenforced. Growers and dealers are still pursued by police, but the courts,
overwhelmed by more serious drug cases involving cocaine and heroin, usually
hand out light penalties.

The result has been an even more aggressive testing of the limits of
tolerance. "I don't think I would have got into this business unless I had
some kind of political agenda," says Karen Watson, who owns the Amsterdam
Hemporium Coffee Shop in Gastown, a bustling tourist district in Vancouver a
few blocks from the central police station.

Along with coffees and cakes, the shop encourages its patrons to bring their
own stash, roll a joint and light up.

The cafe is the most visible symbol of a growing movement to decriminalize
marijuana, a position supported by more than 60 per cent of British
Columbians.

On a sunny weekday afternoon, the cafe is nearly full with young men passing
around the fragrant weed. The store also has a fast-growing worldwide
business selling marijuana seeds. A mere $110 will buy 10 seeds of
California Indica, a "versatile plant" which is "a fine blend of sweet
orange-flavoured Californian strains combined with a skunky hash-flavoured
indica". Or the more adventurous might shell out $200 for Northern Lights, a
three-time cup-winner that is "one of the most powerful plants in the
world."

British Columbia marijuana, most of which is grown indoors under
high-intensity lights, has acquired a reputation as some of the best in the
world. Innovative growers using selective breeding and carefully controlled
hydroponic growing environments have produced plants with 10 times the
concentration of THC - the active ingredient that produces the marijuana
high - of plants grown a generation ago.

While there are some large warehouse operations, most of the growing appears
to take place on a small scale, and many legal hydroponics stores have
sprouted up around Vancouver to equip home growers.

Rolf Maurer, publisher of New Star Books, a small Vancouver Press that is
producing a comprehensive guide to cannabis, offers one typical example.
Christine, a woman in her late 40s living on disability payments, started by
growing a handful of plants to supply herself and a few friends.

When the government threatened to cut off her support payments for unrelated
reasons, she went into the business on a larger scale, dedicating two rooms
of her rented house and producing about four crops a year. At best that
would net about $20,300 to 23,700 a year, minus the electricity bills and
$3,400 for setting up the operation. Not lavish, but a living.

Maurer is undertaking his own experiment to "test the limits of tolerance."
He is cultivating several plants next to his household compost pile, and
near a meter that is read every two months by the electricity company.

Opinions vary as to just how big a business marijuana has become in British
Columbia.

Police say the crop is worth anywhere from $675 million to $1.3 billion
annually, roughly the value of the province's mining industry and about
twice the size of the fishing industry.

Much of it is smuggled into the U.S. Gene Davis, deputy chief with the U.S.
Border Patrol in Washington state, says the quantity of pot moving across
the border has doubled annually for each of the past three years.