$5B MARIJUANA TRADE A DEADLY GROWTH INDUSTRY

Vancouver police are investigating the death of a Vietnamese
immigrant in an upmarket neighbourhood to determine if the killing is part
of a gangland war in the C$1 billion (HK$5.4 billion) a year marijuana
trade. Inside the Burnaby home of John Ly, 24, whose beaten body was found
earlier this week on his doorstep, police turned up a hydroponic
marijuana-growing operation.

The killing, which officers have linked to bloody rivalry between
Vietnamese factions, is one of dozens in recent years directly attributable
to the lucrative cross-border marijuana trade.

Booming hydroponic technology and organised crime, including Vietnamese
motorcycle gangs, have fuelled the multibillion-dollar enterprise. Last
year, the Economist said thousands of British Columbia indoor pot-growing
operations "exported" several hundred tonnes southwards.

British Columbia "pot" is highly prized because of its high
tetrahydrocannabinol content. It fetches about US$6,000 (HK$46,600) per
0.5kg across Canada's largely unsecured border with the United States.

So large is the export trade that last year Canada only narrowly avoided
being placed on the US Government's blacklist of drug-source countries that
include Colombia and Afghanistan.

How large is the residential pot-growing business in the lower British
Columbia mainland? A day after Ly's body was found, police conducted a raid
in Nanaimo, a city of 73,000 on Vancouver Island. They arrested 10 people
after finding more than 1,000 marijuana plants in four flats at a single
block.

But police say that is only a drop in the bucket. In the first nine months
of last year, about 4,500 people across Canada were charged with
cultivating marijuana. More than half were residents of the nation's most
westerly province.

Police say that about 7,000 homes in the Vancouver region alone are used to
cultivate marijuana. Several weeks ago, nearly 100 officers in the area
raided 24 houses, seizing more than 2,000 plants with an estimated value of
C$1.4 million.

The province has long been known as a haven for devotees of pot culture. In
addition, tolerance of cannabis smoking is general among the population.
And about two-thirds of the province' residents favour decriminalising
simple marijuana possession.

Police say that even average growers can make about C$10,000 a month for
cultivating plants. Those caught usually plead guilty and accept fines
ranging from C$500 to $3,000. Such penalties are viewed as the cost of
doing business.

"You have to take the profit out of it to control it," said an observer.
"It's just like Prohibition or the Irish Sweepstakes . . . the Government
couldn't stop it, so they took it over."