A FLOW OF POWERFUL POT

The driver and passenger who pulled up to the border crossing at Lynden,
Wash., could have been just another pair of Canadian bargain-hunters: a
woman in her early 20s and her grey-haired, fiftysomething mother,
heading south for a spot of shopping at an American mall. Crossings are
normally quick at Lynden, the least-busy of four border stations south
of Vancouver.

But on this February day, U.S. customs officers were conducting a "block
blitz." Agents directed up to 20 vehicles at a time to a parking area,
ordered drivers to open their trunks, then turned sniffer dogs loose on
the cars. Coming upon the women' s 1991 Dodge Shadow the dogs found what
they were sniffing for: 10.8 kg of high-grade B.C. marijuana, concealed
in a compartment behind the backseat.

The seizure was one small victory for American lawmen over a new wave of
dope-runners bent on smuggling the potent cannabis known as "B.C. bud" in
to the United States. British Columbians may complain that a
once-welcoming border is becoming more difficult to cross.

But American officials counter that tie-ups are inevitable as long as the
southward flow of powerful pot continues. They blame the surge on two
things: relatively lighter Canadian penalties for growing marijuana, and
the high quality of Canadian weed. "Canada's got phenomenal bud," says
Michael Flego, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officer in charge of
interdictions along the western portion of Washington state's border with
Canada. "The potency far exceeds most of what's grown in California. This
stuff will knock your socks off." American smokers are equally admiring:
in markets like San Francisco, B.C. marijuana can fetch $6,000 (U.S.) a
pound.

But the facts do not quite match the hype. Some evidence suggests B.C.
pot is not as strong as advertised. RCMP sources told Maclean' s that a
laboratory analysis of cannabis seized in the lower B.C. mainland in 1995
measured an average potency of just eight per cent THC content-the active
chemical in marijuana-nowhere near the 25 per cent that U.S. law
enforcement officers claim.

Nor are the differences between Canadian and U.S. penalties for
cultivation and trafficking as wide as American officials suggest.

Agent Flego concedes U.S. federal prosecutors will not proceed with cases
involving much less than 225 kg of processed pot, leaving smaller-scale
prosecutions to state attorneys where sentences are less harsh.

Meanwhile, Canadian police have stepped up raids on so-called
grow-houses, where the best quality pot is produced using hydroponic
techniques.

But odds still favor the smugglers.

Despite surveillance by U.S. border patrols and a network of remote
sensors, much of the frontier south of Vancouver is barely marked let
alone guarded.

Along Zero Avenue in suburban Surrey, only a ditch and the occasional
white-painted concrete pylon separate the two countries.

Flego admits that, along much of the border, "you can walk 20, 30, 40 lb.
across, no problem." The big volume of smuggled marijuana became clear
earlier this year during Operation Brass Ring, a five-month drug
smuggling crackdown along both the northern and southern U.S. borders.

Inspectors at the four Vancouver-area crossing points made a handful of
seizures of cocaine, heroin and hashish, but nailed an astounding 503 kg
of marijuana, worth $6.7 million.

Flego laughs at the trade imbalance. "We've given you everything we could
think of: heroin, LSD, methamphetamines, cocaine, " he says. "But you
guys have us beat with the pot."

Copyright 1998 Maclean Hunter Publishing Limited

Checked-by: "Don Beck"