CANADA GROWS MORE POT THAN PARSLEY

More marijuana was grown in Canada last year than parsley, with the criminal
crop increasingly taking root in Ontario and Quebec. And it has become a
"major problem" in Alberta, said RCMP Staff Sgt. Birnie Smith, Calgary drug
section commander. Some observers claim Alberta is third only to British
Columbia and Ontario for the quantity produced.

"We've noticed that Alberta has turned into a producing area as opposed to
an importing area," said Smith, adding the trend has taken place over the
past seven or eight years.

"It is a major problem in this country and especially now in this debate
about its (marijuana) medical uses."

An RCMP report on Canada's $18-billion, illicit street-drug trade estimates
at least 800 tonnes of pot was grown domestically last year - the first time
the Mounties have made such a calculation.

The results have surprised even them. By comparison, 727 tonnes of parsley
sprouted in Canada last year.

"This estimate appears overwhelming," the report states, and, in fact,
investigators believe it's "quite conservative."

RCMP Leo Vaillant, one of the report's authors, said, "It's sort of
mindboggling but that's what the situation is."

Smith said he had "no idea where we stand in production" compared to other
areas of the country but believed the magnitude of the problem is likely
"population based".

"There is a lot of major cultivation in Alberta," he said. And because it
remains illegal, "there's the black-market angle and all the baggage that
comes with it," said Smith.

Many Alberta growers have moved from basements to industrial parks so the
large use of electricity is less conspicuous. Or they have moved to rural
underground locations to hide their operations.

The release of the report follows a call in April by Canada's police chiefs,
and quickly backed by the RCMP, for Ottawa to decriminalize possession of
small amounts of marijuana.

The chief's policy recommends giving police officers the option of ticketing
people caught with 30 grams or less of marijuana sparing them a criminal
record. They argue the move, which stops short of legalizing the weed,
could free up police resources to tackle more serious crimes.

The marijuana estimate is based, in part, on the more than one million pot
plants police seized across the country last year, up from about 690,000 in
1997. (A more efficient RCMP system of tracking cross-country seizures in
1998 accounts for part of that increase.)

Still, police estimate 4.7 million plants were harvested, with each mature
plant producing an average 170 grms of "marketable substance".

After coffee, alcohol and tobacco and certain prescription drugs, cannabis
is the most popular psychoactive substance in the nation, says the Canadian
Centre on Substance Abuse. But after a decade of relatively stable use, it
says pot smoking is gaining in popularity again, especially among the young.
Then there's the money to be made.

In British Columbia, Canada's chief pot-growing region, a kilogram of
potent, hydroponic pot - with a thc strength of 15 to 20 percent - is
reported to be selling for more than $6,000 to middlemen.