DOPE DELIVERY

You can order out for gang-free pot -- now that's progress

MONTREAL -- It's sort of amusing that Toronto's dailies have been running
scary stories about the Hells Angel's advance on T.O., when we here in la
belle province have been living among them forever.

Journalistic rumour warns that the notorious bikers control every vice biz
they touch, but take it from Montreal's independent pot entrepreneurs -- the
Angels don't own everything.

Quebec gold

It may be more difficult to manoeuvre when a bike gang's sharing your turf,
but an army of local farmers, gardeners and crafty distributors, boosted by
a considerable degree of law enforcement tolerance, are filling the market
with a flood of Angels-free Quebec gold. And these operators are growing
increasingly respectable and businesslike about wooing and maintaining their
customer base.

Take Monsieur Blanc (whose name has been changed for obvious reasons). A
former business student, he works from noon to midnight five days a week,
out of a rented Toyota. The tools of his trade are three cellphones -- one
for export, another for import and one for his partner. After a month, he
disassembles each phone and tosses the pieces into the river.

"Part of the overhead," he laughs.

We talk on the condition that if a phone rings, I'll step out of the car. As
we speak, he's engineering a 160-kilo transaction between one enterprise
owned by Jamaicans and another of mixed Puerto Rican-Colombians. After eight
calls in 90 minutes, the strain is showing.

Monsieur Blanc's original plan of becoming a math teacher came to an abrupt
end when he was arrested for possession during his second year at the
University of Montreal. He made a career switch and has now spent 15 highly
successful years in the marijuana trade.

"I like the freedom marijuana gives me," he says. "Some days I work more
than a regular job, but I control my own agenda. It's a hard job, with
beaucoup stress, but somebody has to do it and somebody's going to do it.
Why not me?

"I do my job honestly, and I'm a big part of the economy. I create jobs," he
says, pointing out that he began exporting to Ontario last year and brought
over $1 million back to Quebec, which he says goes to farmers, workers and
local retailers.

It's impossible to say how many work in the industry, but Monsieur Blanc
tells me of one village near Montreal where he estimates that over 60 per
cent of the population earn their livelihood directly or indirectly from
marijuana.

Better standard

"These people buy skidoos, boats renovate their homes and start businesses,"
he says. "They eat better, and have a better standard of living, all because
of marijuana."

The region southeast of Montreal, known in both police and pot circles as
the Golden Triangle, boasts a warm microclimate ideal for growing marijuana.
Most pot grown here, which sells at $1,800 a pound locally, winds up going
for $3,500 on the streets of New York, where it's dubbed "Quebec Gold."

Dana Larsen, editor of Vancouver's Cannabis Culture magazine, says pot
growers should do more aggressive marketing. He has vague recollections of
trying Quebec pot during last year's Cannabis Cup festivities in Amsterdam.
"It was pretty damn good," he says, "certainly comparable to any of the
stuff we're growing out here in BC."

It may not carry a connoisseur's label, but Quebec pot is being marketed by
savvy entrepreneurs.

Monsieur Rouge (whose name has also been changed) is a cannabis capitalist
of a different stripe and scale, catering to private parties, vernissages
and visiting rock stars by appointment only.

With his hip-length ponytail and granny glasses, he could be a throwback to
the glory days of Expo 67, when an ounce of Mexican stems and seeds went for
$20 in the McGill ghetto.

"I'm just a mid-level businessman doing business with like-minded friends,"
he asserts. "And my vocation in life is to provide my friends with quality
product at reasonable prices, although prices seem to be less of an issue
these days.

"Accessibility is more important," he says. "No one wants to go all over
town to get pot, so I deliver."

His business card includes a pager number. You call, leave your number and
within five minutes someone calls back. You then give your address, state
how much product you want, and a short time later Monsieur Rouge is at your
door.

"Pot answers to the same laws as any other market," he explains, "and
business right now is very good. It's going for around $3,000 a pound, but
in a few weeks it'll climb to $3,500. For the consumer, though, prices
should remain fairly consistent at around $10 a gram."

He credits a crackdown along the U.S.-Quebec border.

"The way the U.S. has been flipping out, it's getting too dangerous to ship
weed south, so a lot of the really good shit is staying here."

Since this is as competitive a business as any, to retain old clients and
attract new, Monsieur Rouge occasionally resorts to weekend specials of five
grams for $40, with an extra pre-rolled joint thrown in.

And while the sales operators strive to please, local police seem to keep a
low profile. Smoking up safely in Montreal is mainly a question of
discretion.

"We still arrest people here for marijuana," says police spokesperson Sylvie
Latour. But she adds, "Of course, officers always have discretionary powers
and may choose to advise violators of the law rather than arrest them."

Last February, police raided Montreal's Compassion Club, which provides
medical pot to the sick and dying. Two individuals were arrested for
trafficking, but even people on the force were not thrilled with the bust.
"It's not something I would want to put on my resume," says the senior
officer in charge.

The club operated directly across from a major police station, leaving
police little choice. It has since resumed operations, and while
investigations continue, inspector Andre Lapointe of the morality squad
concedes it's a losing battle.

"I'm not going to be putting 50 men on their case."

In terms of biker involvement -- even police have trouble figuring out the
full extent that it occurs.

"Most of the big hydroponic productions are now controlled by biker gangs,"
says sergeant Richard Bourdon of the Surete du Quebec's anti-biker Wolverine
Squad.

Outlaw clubs

"Mostly, it's in the hands of the Hells," he says, "but it's impossible to
say what percentage of their activities are marijuana-related. We do know
that marijuana has become their most important source of revenue, much more
than cocaine, hashish and heroin ever were."

There are indeed six full-coloured Hell's Angels chapters and seven
affiliate outlaw motorcycle clubs in Quebec, scattered from Chicoutimi to
the Eastern Townships.

When the Angels began selling drugs in rival Rock Machine territory in 1993,
the Machine responded with the first shots in a war that continues to this
day, and has so far resulted in more than 150 homicides, as many murder
attempts and 200 bombing and arson incidents.

But independent pot dealers are quick to dismiss police and media reports
linking everyone in the marijuana trade to the gangs.

"This idea of tagging every Quebec marijuana worker a biker is nothing short
of pharmaceutical McCarthyism," says Rouge.

Most marijuana here, says Blanc, "is grown by 50 or 60 independent groups.
Between groups, someone knows or is related to someone in the other group --
everybody is somebody's middleman."

"As for the bikers," he says, "if they want to control heroin and coke,
fine, let them. But no matter what anyone says, nobody -- not the
government, not the bikers, nor the police -- controls marijuana here in
Quebec."