BC BORDER IS NEW FOCUS FOR POT TRADE

In the past, Canada's high-profile exports to the United States featured
hockey players and comedians. Now there's a cash crop on the list --
homegrown marijuana that ranks among the priciest and most potent in the
world.

The pot is so coveted on the West Coast that it sometimes trades
pound-for-pound for cocaine, officials say. Stepped-up searches for it have
led to vexing backups at some border crossings.

Although the United States border with Mexico remains its No. 1 smuggling
zone, U.S. Customs Service has nearly doubled its enforcement effort there
because of a surge of marijuana smuggled in from British Columbia.

"The price of B.C. marijuana has become very high," said Gene Kervan,
customs director at the busy border crossing at Blaine.

"It's the drug of choice in many locations."

Much of the prized pot is grown indoors by the increasingly popular
hydroponic method -- using bright artificial light and nutrient-laced
water, but no soil. Kervan said the product can earn as much as $6,000 a
pound in parts of California -- 10 times the typical for marijuana from
Mexico.

Kervan's officers have been searching more and more vehicles coming south
from the Vancouver area, and uncovering more and more pot -- a change that
has sometimes resulted in two-hour backups for motorists trying to enter
the United States.

The border crackdown in Washington has pushed some trafficers east into
Idaho. Customs officers there conducted a two-week operation in March that
resulted in eight drug arrests -- about the number usually made in a year.

Marijuana is believed to rank now as British Columbia's most lucrative
agricultural product --with illegal revenues estimated at anywhere from
$400 million to more htan $3 billion.

Kervan said there is no typical pot smuggler.

"That's the toughest part for us," he said, recounting one border bust
involving a husband and wife carrying 17 pounds of marijuana along with
their two young children. That same day, a couple in their 70s were
arrested for carrying 24 pounds of marijuana in their truck.