BC DRUG BUSTS NET 14000 MARIJUANA PLANTS

In the British Columbia marijuana business, this year's hot, sunny
summer has been hailed as the best-ever for growing pot outdoors.

For the RCMP, using helicopters to search vast and densely forested
regions, the bumper weed crop has led to the seizure of tens of
thousands of marijuana plants. The latest bust, announced yesterday by
the Kootenay Boundary detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
had 14,130 plants taken from 88 sites in the southern central region
of B.C. around Nelson.

The police estimated the street value of the drugs at nearly
$80-million, based on the individual sale of 15.5-million joints. The
wholesale value was pegged at roughly $25-million. Six people were
arrested in the two separate investigations, according to Inspector
Nick Romanchuk.

The RCMP on Vancouver Island have also been busy, seizing about 29,000
plants this year in various busts, a quarter more than the 23,000 in
2008. One study has shown that nearly half of the pot on Vancouver
Island is grown outdoors. While B.C. has a reputation as Canada's pot
paradise, the country's most populous province, Ontario, is home to an
equally big bud business, estimates suggest.

Last September, Ontario Provincial Police trumpeted the largest pot
bust in Canadian history when they seized 40,000 plants in a cornfield
near Pembroke in the eastern area of the province.