B.C. BUD, BEARS AND BUSINESS

"If you go out in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. If
you go out in the woods today, you better go in disguise. For every
bear there ever there was will gather there for certain because" .
well don't we all know the rest?

With apologies to John Walter Bratton, who wrote the infectious melody
in 1907 and Robert Browne Hall, who added the words to Teddy Bears'
Picnic in 1932, just what is going on in the woods these days?
Especially the B.C. woods?

As if we didn't know. According to Forbes Magazine, BC Bud adds $7
billion annually to the province's bottom line, which is close to five
per cent of the province's GDP. But Marc Emery, B.C.'s "Prince of Pot"
estimates the 10,000 to 20,000 grow-ops in the province produce close
to $30 billion worth of untaxed revenue for the province every year.

Is it any wonder then that you have Goldilocks and the Three Bears
guarding a grow-op in the woods near Christina Lake with more than
1,000 specimens of the province's largest cash crop?

B.C. has been long renowned for its ditzy politics, but the province's
real claim to fame is its marijuana industry, reputed to be the
largest in the world and producing the best quality product on the
planet. Perhaps they should add a BC Bud leaf to the provincial coat
of arms. Considering the state of the lumber industry these days, it
would make more sense than a Douglas fir.

Kinda sad though. Remember the good ol' days when people in the
province boasted that 50 cents of every dollar earned in B.C. came
from the forest industry. Boasting about BC Bud somehow doesn't sound
quite the same. But wasn't it said at the time Ross Rebagliati tested
positive after winning his Olympic gold snowboarding medal that you
could get "high" in Whistler by just driving through town with your
window open?

As Dylan said those many years ago "The times they are a-changing."
Innocence lost is seldom a pretty thing, but I'd be less than telling
the truth if I didn't allow that on a slow news day in August the
story of Goldilocks and the Three Marijuana Guard Bears is the kind of
item any reporter with conjones would kill for.

Some of you older readers may remember the all-time classic BCTV news
story 30 years ago when the RCMP busted, I think it was, a tugboat
full of pot around Vancouver Island and then disposed of it by burning
the stash. With the camera running, the TV newsman got as close to the
"smoke" as he could to interview a burly cop giggling beside the
flames with a look on his face that could only be described as loopy.
It was a new high in TV reporting, so to speak.

I also remember a trip I made to Vancouver about 10 years ago when I
saw an interesting hardware store with a weird psychedelic sign on the
front of the building. This piqued my interest so I went inside and I
saw rows and rows of nothing but big electric fans, aluminium duct
pipes and grow lights of every description. I started asking the
bearded proprietor a bunch of questions and he got very nervous
thinking I was a nark. Quite the contrary. Just a naive up-country
boy.

Whatever the case, the party may soon be over in the Land of Bud. This
fall, voters in California are voting on a referendum to allow people
to legally grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana for personal use.
Considering that California has a larger population than all of Canada
and is one of the 10 biggest economies in the world, the effect on
B.C.'s unofficial, but incredibly valuable, cannabis industry could be
devastating.

Especially in the Lower Mainland where it's estimated 80 per cent of
the province's grow-ops are located, but also communities like Nelson
smack in the centre of the Kootenay backwoods pot zone and even tiny
Christiana Lake where Yogi, Smoky and their friends have been trained
to guard the stash.

"Ev'ry teddy bear who's been good ?is sure of a treat today. ?There's
lots of marvellous things to eat ?And wonderful games to play."

Only in British Columbia, you say? Where else in the world do
picnicking teddy bears moonlight as marijuana guard dogs?