GOING GAGA FOR GANJA

Risk of prison doesn't deter average Joe from quick riches of hydroponics

A new wave of drug dealing is hitting city streets and has probably already
arrived in a neighbourhood near you.

Every community in Calgary has become infested with indoor marijuana crops,
police and lawyers say, because pot has become a low-risk business with the
potential for enormous profit.

"It's like mushrooms," says Calgary lawyer Alain Hepner who defends people
charged with cultivation. "They're growing up all over the place."

Calgary pot can compete easily in export markets, says Calgary RCMP Staff
Sgt. Birnie Smith. And a well-run basement operation can yield tens or
hundreds of thousands of dollars from several harvests a year.

Smith, commander of the 28-officer Calgary regional drug section, says
Albertans from all walks of life are weighing the risk of detection and
punishment against the quick, untaxed riches and deciding to take the plunge.

"It's a multi-billion dollar business throughout Canada," he says.

Calgary police say they're seeing only the tip of the iceberg. "We can't
keep up with it," says Det. Pat Tetley, a drug expert with the 20-member
police drug unit. "The cross-section of people growing pot is staggering."

Calgary police laid 120 charges in raids on Calgary homes in 1997 in search
of crops- a dramatic increase compared with 1987 when only 31 people in
Alberta were charged with illegal growing.

Police seized more than 4,000 plants with a street value of $5.6 million.

The city's horticultural criminals are so proficient at indoor growing that
their crops are far more potent than the popular Acapulco Gold and Maui
Wowee of the 1960s and early '70s, say city police and RCMP.

Staff Sgt. Paul Laventure, head of the drug unit, says the police service
has responded in recent years by training its district police officers to
pitch in with the smaller cases.

In an investigation, the Herald visited homes around the city based on
addresses given to police by people caught in raids or their associates,
friends and family.

Some looked incongruous- a small, ordinary house, for example, with big,
luxury vehicles parked outside. Many addresses turned out to be phoney.

One Calgary sales professional who has come under police surveillance said
he is sticking with his buddies in the business though his only role is
occasionally to puff the stuff.

"I'm proud of all my friends," said the man, who was reluctant to speak out
and did not want to be identified. "I should not be treated as a criminal.
I have honest beliefs."

"I believe in the cause. All my friends are going to be my friends until
the day I die."

Persons from a variety of occupations - including firefighters, auto
mechanics, bankers, realtors, car salesmen and office managers- are showing
up on dockets across the province, according to court files.

"It's your neighbor who gets involved." says Hepner.

Many start off small, growing a crop for their own use and for family and
friends. As they get more proficient, they set their sights higher as they
see an easy way to make the mortgage payments.

One pound of pot can fetch the grower up to $3,000.

Reference books on sentencing show that the courts typically give
small-time growers only a few months in jail when they are convicted of
cultivation and the related charge of possessison for the purpose of
trafficking.

"This type of activity can be very financially lucrative," says Calgary
lawyer Jim Ogle. This is the bootlegging industry of the 1990's"

Mark Emery of Vancouver, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, puts his
freedom where his ideals are. He's been jailed more times for pot-related
offences than most people would care to remember.

Calgary and Edmonton are among Canada's largest marijuana producing cities,
with only Vancouver ahead of them, says Emery, proprietor of a mail order
business whose product is a poorly kept secret."I'm the world's most famous
seed-seller," says the outspoken 40-yr.old marijuana advocate who reveals
he has "dealt" with 75 people from Calgary and 100 from Edmonton in the
past six months.

"Pot doesn'thave an ideology."

Emery says anyone can become a grower.

The Internet is a treasure trove of information, he says. Armed with this
knowledge, the would-be farmer can look in the Yellow Pages under
"Hydroponics- Equipment and Supplies" and go shopping for "tomato" equiplment.

The design of the operation must take ventilation into account- cannabis
exudes a strong odor and the humidity can destroy a house's drywall and
wood framing in less than two years.

The RCMP's Smith says some growers obtain housing by making monthly
payments they then employ a full-time crop-sitter" to cultivate and harvest
the pot.

They avoid renting because the landlord might drop by for an inspection.

Tetley, of the Calgary police, says crop-sitters are ordinary people who
try to blend in with the neighborhood. They mow the lawns, trim the hedges
and assume a cover story - they're a "business consultant", for example.

Growers pay their crop-sitters a wage, or give them a cut of the revenue
(10 per cent, for example) or a flat fee. The grower eventually abandons
the heavily-damaged house or gives it to the crop-sitter.

Hepner says most local growers and their cropsitters operate in small
groups. "I see a lot of really small cells of people supplementing their
incomes," the lawyer says. "They've got their own distributtion network."

However, police suspect big-league organized criminals like the Hell's
Angels motorcycle club are getting their tentacles into the business,
especially in rural Alberta where RCMP have uncovered much larger scale
operations.

"We know some facets of organized crime are involved," says Smith. "It's a
money-making thing. When they see it, their ears perk up."

Tetley says Calgary police get the majority of their tips from
Crimestoppers. He added police also get calls from citizens "who suspect
their next door neighbor who appears not to be working is driving expensive
vehicles."

When city police raid an operation, they usually catch the lowly
crop-sitters and occasionally the owners who supervise them. People higher
up are rarely caught, says Tetley, because ths involves indercover work.

"It's difficult to actually infiltrate an organization to the point where
you would be involved as a middleman, commercially moving the finished
product," Tetley says.

Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd, author of the 1991 book
High Society which questions the criminalization of marijuana use says
police cannot win the war against the drug because too many Canadians are
using it.

"You've gota proliferation of people growing anywhere from a pound to 50
pounds or more," Boyd says. "There simply aren't enough police resources to
be able to respond."

Calgary's Det. Tetley agrees police manage to find only a fraction of
marijuana crops. But "we always seem to be able to muster up the strength
to do an investigation if it crosses our desk." he says.

Tetley says fear of detection is a deterrent.

"Do I look like a policeman to you ?" asks the oft-time undercover officer
who looks more like a Vancouver Island goat farmer. "You just never know
who you're dealing with."

Hepner says people lwho grow pot see their activity as a victimless crime.
"The soft drugs are not as reviled as cocaine," the lawyer says. "They
don't see that some of this may end up on a schoolground."

Canada put marijuana on its banned-drug list in 1923. Fifty years later,
the federally-appointed Le Dain Commission urged cautious movement toward
freedom of choice and that pot possession no longer be a criminal offence.

But Tetley says that the marijuana trade is fraught with danger.

It's a cash-for product business conducted among criminals with the
ever-present possibility of deadly conflict, he points out. "You have the
flow of millions of dollars under the table."

Tetley and the RCMP say many people also fail to appreciate the high
potency of modern marijuana that has been achieved through the creation of
ideal growing conditions-good light, heat, nutrition and humidity.

A quarter century ago, says Tetley, Acupulco Gold had a tetrahydro-
cannabinol content of two or three per cent. Today, the THC content of
home-cultivataed cannabis can exceed 20 percent-enough to induce
hallucinations.

And THC is known to remain in the human body's fatty tissues for a long as
a month- a phenomenon that raises the spectre of LSD-style flashbacks, says
Tetley.

"Marijuana produced in Alberta and B.C. is considered to be among the
best-if not the best-in the world," says Cpl. Bob Simmonds of the Edmonton
RCMP drug section.

Vancouver's Mark Emery insists B.C.'s marijuana production is a bright spot
in an otherwise dismal economy. "You can be an old person, a young person,
a student, a single mother- anybody can grow pot in one or two rooms. The
majority of customers are 30,40,50 and now in their 60's," Emery says. "You
have a hard time thinking of these people as evil scum."

But Tetley says, "this sort of thing is not acceptable. It's not socially
acceptable. And it certainly isn't legally acceptable.

"For someone to tell me that marijuana is a harless drug, perhaps they'd
like to have a conversation with my wife when I've come home after a
serious situation This is dangerous stuff."

Sidebar Article: The drop on Dope:

Hydroponics- Persons charged with cultivation:

Canada Alberta

1997- 3,131 116
1996 2,175 95
1992 1,567 113
1987 487 31

Source: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics

Calgary statistics: 1997 1996

Plants seized: 4,067 3,944
Street value $5.6 M $5.5 M
Charges laid 120 144

Pot Shots:

1997

Sept.17: Calgary police charge a man and a woman after seizing more than
1,000 marijuana plants from a house in the southwest community of Braeside.
Street value is estimated to be as high as $500,000.

Decl4: Police arrest five men after seizing 495 marijuana plants from homes
in the southwest of Applewood, Penbrooke and Queensland and the northwest
community of Hawkwood. Estimated street values: $700,000.

1998

Feb. 26: Calgary police charge a woman after seizing $273,000 worth of
marijuana from a house in the northwest community of Hidden Valley.
Detectives describe it as a highly elaborate commercial operation.

March 11: City police and RCMP charge a man after finding 400 marijuana
plants worth about $560,000 from a house in the northeast community of of
Whitehorn. Police say the operation could produce three crops per year.

April 3: The city police and RCMP "Green Team" seize 273 pot plants worth
about $382,000 from a northeast warehouse after receiving an anonymous tip.
Two men are arrested.

Pot Pourri

Double Murder

Barry Christian Buchart, 26, known to police for cultivating hydroponically
grown marijuana, ws shot to death along with his friend Trevor Deakins, 25,
in 1994 by robbers who burst into their southeast basement home in search
of drugs and money. The double morder remains unsolved.

Corny Cultivation: A Brooks farmer thought those tall, leafy plants growing
between rows of feed corn looked like a mighty strange weed. Upon closer
inspection, it turned out to be a crop of 375 mature marijuana plants that
some braxen interlopers were cultivating. The farmer called the RCMP, who
destroyed the plants. Sgt. Rich Noack said the pot was worth as much as
$300,000 on the street.

Man's worst friend: City police charged a Calgary man with cultivating
marijuana after his dog dialled 911. The operator, who could hear only
beavy breathing, sent police to the home. Police ended up finding a dog--
and a hydroponic marijuana operation. The dog apparently fell asleep after
knocking the telelphone receiver off its cradle and hitting a
speed-dialling button.

Legal defence fund: Parkhill, Ont- Bernie and Kris Nauss thought they had
the world by the tail last March, having just collected their $22.5 million
in a record Super 7 lottery jackpot. Then the news media published
information about their forthcoming court appearance on 1997 narcotics
charges relating to an alleged hyroponic marijuana growing operation in
their home.

Man with a past: Lamont, Alberta:- RCMP arrested Britane Tilley in 1995
after raiding a sophisticated hydroponic marijuana operation near this
town-then discovered he was one of the United States most wanted smuggling
suspects who was given special mention on the TV show America's Most
Wanted. The fugitive allegedly ws involved in a airborn chase from San
Antonio to the Mexican border in 1989.

Guard dog slain: A judge handed home invader John James McConnell an
eight-year sentence in 1996 after McConnell and an unknown accomoplice blew
a Rottweiler dog apart with a shotgun blast in a 1994 robbery. The men
stole hydroponic marijuana from the home; then led police on a high-speed
chase. McConnell, who surrendered, refused to identify his partner.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski