Police losing fight against homegrown marijuana : Pot luck:
Hydroponic systems make inhome cultivation easy and profitable.

A marijuana smoker gets tired of paying top dollar and decides to
start growing the plant himself. With a few hundred dollars in his
pocket, he heads to his local hydroponic shop.

Six weeks later, he has all the marijuana he can handle and extra to
sell to friends at belowdealer prices.

Police are all too aware of the trend and are powerless to stop it.
Selling hydroponic units to legitimate gardeners is legal. Catching
retailers in the act of selling for other purposes is next to
impossible.

Staff Sgt. Doug Wilkinson, head of the Ottawa/Carleton Regional Drug
unit, says that 10 years ago, about 25 to 30 per cent of marijuana
consumed in the Ottawa area was grown locally. Now, 70 to 80 per cent
of the marijuana smoked is grown here thanks to cheap hydroponic
systems available at nurseries and specialty shops.

It's not just for personal use, either. Police say major traffickers
are in the hydroponic business. Almost every major marijuana bust in
eastern Canada in the last three years involved a hydroponic system.
For example:

On March 24, RCMP charged a 48-year-old Ottawa man after finding
$160,000 worth of marijuana and a sophisticated laboratory in the
basement of a Fisher Avenue home.

On March 18, RCMP charged a Vanier man after finding $80,000 worth
of marijuana growing in a hydroponic laboratory in his apartment.

On March 14, Ontario Provincial Police arrested and charged a
26-year-old man near Morrisburg after 157 marijuana plants were found
growing in a hydroponic lab in his home.

On Feb. 19, Gatineau police found 71 marijuana plants being grown
with $2,000 worth of hydroponic equipment. One man was charged with
cultivating for the purpose of trafficking.

On Feb. 17, a 23yearold Cornwall area woman was charged with
cultivating marijuana for the purpose of trafficking after police
found hundreds of marijuana plants and $10,000 worth of hydroponic
equipment at a residence near Cornwall.

Last September, the biggest hydroponic bust in Canada took place in
Quebec's Eastern Townships after a fourmonth RCMP, Surete de Quebec
and Canadian Armed Forces operation culminated in the seizure of
17,000 marijuana plants, two hydroponic greenhouses, two processing
laboratories and several other pieces of equipment linked to marijuana
cultivation. Twenty people were charged.

The motive behind the explosion in the use of hydroponics is the same
as for any other drug-producing activity: profit for those who want to
traffic, and convenience for people who grow for personal use.

``Some plants can be worth $1,000 each, so it can be very lucrative,''
says RCMP narcotics Insp. Dale Begbie. ``And it's relatively easy to
do. Just get some seeds, a couple of hundred dollars worth of
equipment and you're in business.''

Hydroponic systems involve applying liquefied nutrients directly to
the roots of a plant and the use of artificial grow lights. They can
be used for ny plant, from orchids to tomatoes. But the cost of
setting up a basic system is steep, ranging from $400 to $1,000 a
lot of money to grow better tomatoes.

In Ottawa-Carleton, there are a handful of speciality shops dedicated
to selling only hydroponic equipment. Toronto and Montreal have seven
each.

"Obviously, we'd rather they not be selling these things, but it's
not illegal, so there's nothing we can do about it," says Insp.
Begbie.

Owners of hydroponic shops say that if they think customers are
looking to start a potgrowing operation, they won't sell the
equipment to them.

But a quick tour of Ottawa area shops by a reporter posing as a
potential customer found staff at two stores openly talking about the
merits of growing pot, how to do it and what the legalities are.

``Don't let your paranoia get the better of you,'' said one employee,
when asked whether police could catch you by monitoring your increased
hydro bills. ``If you do it right, there's nothing to worry about.
It's not like you're going to be growing a hundred plants.''

Ottawa area hydroponic shops buy radio ads on local rock `n' roll
stations, which have target audiences of young adults, and their print
ads are in alternative publications such as Xpress, a small newspaper
devoted mainly to twentysomething culture and music.

``I don't know if (hydroponic companies) are buying time on our
station to reach younger people because they might want to grow pot or
maybe the companies buy the time because younger people are more
likely to embrace the new technology,'' says Gary Aube, general
manager of rock station The Bear.

Mr. Aube added that he hasn't received a complaint about the ads at
the Bear or at other stations where he has worked.

``I used to work at Q107 in Toronto,'' he says, ``and there we had a
hydroponic ad that was very cutesy and marijuana-suggestive, frankly
was it pretty blatant, and we never got a call.''

Staff Sgt. Wilkinson says there has never been a bust at a hydroponic
shop because proving store owners know what people are buying the
units for is almost impossible.

``If they know what the person is buying the system for, it could be
proven they were abetting a criminal activity. But getting evidence to
support that would be hard, and it would be extremely difficult to
make it stick in court.''

Staff Sgt. Wilkinson says the use of hydroponic growing systems has
jumped sharply in the Ottawa area in the last five years. This follows
the pattern across Canada.

``It used to be, you could only get hydroponic equipment through
specialty magazines. Now it's so simple. The equipment is there, and,
if you have access to the Internet, you can get stepbystep
instructions on how to grow it.''

He couldn't put an exact dollar figure on the marijuana trade in
Ottawa-Carleton, but estimates it is ``well into the millions''
yearly. He said the number rises to more than $1 billion a year
nationally.

Police acknowledge, however, that most hydroponic equipment users only
grow enough marijuana for their own use. Typically, they set up small
hydroponic labs in their basements, closets or garages. If they do get
caught, they get a slap on the wrist, if they are charged at all.

Another reason for the popularity of hydroponic equipment for growing
pot is the high-quality product produced. Years ago, pot smokers would
scoff at the suggestion of smoking homegrown weed because of its low
levels of THC, the active ingredient in the smoke that gets people
stoned.

``The levels of THC in hydroponic marijuana are way higher than stuff
grown in regular soil,'' Staff Sgt. Wilkinson says. ``The nutrients
people feed the plants can be altered to produce the maximum amount of
THC.''

Barring some unforeseen change in the law, the sale of the units will
continue to be a thorn in the side for police.

``We've lived with this for a number of years, and it looks like we're
going to have to live with it in the future too,'' Insp. Dale Begbie
says. ``Whether it's right or wrong isn't really important because
it's not against the law, but definitely makes our jobs that much
harder.''