SOWING DRUG WAR SEEDS

Canadian Pot-Product Merchants Court Disaster By Going
International

And then, suddenly, after a decade or so of relative calm, the war was
on again.

The drug war, that is. Rumours had been circulating in official
marijuana circles for over a month that something funny was up when
the series of Web sites controlled by Montreal-based seed provider
Heaven's Stairway abruptly shut down earlier this year. Last week, the
most ominous of the rumours were confirmed when the RCMP announced
that it had indeed busted the Cartierville operation in late January
and that owner Richard Baghdadlian, his wife and five employees faced
serious charges and possibly lengthy jail terms. Seized in the raid
were some 200,000 marijuana seeds, prompting the RCMP to describe
Heaven's Stairway as "a criminal organization involved in the
trafficking, importation and exportation of cannabis seeds, as well as
in conspiring for the purpose of cannabis cultivation via the Internet."

New Sheriff In Town?

The concern among some civil libertarians and pro-marijuana advocates
is that this latest bust is a sign of things to come under the new
Conservative government.

"I feel it's certainly possible this is the pendulum swinging
backwards and yeah, it concerns me," says Marc-Boris St-Maurice,
executive director of the National Organization of Reform of Marijuana
Laws in Canada. "I mean, funny enough, the last time we saw a war on
drugs/zero tolerance mentality in this country was back in '88, when
Mulroney got re-elected, and now we're seeing another possible return
of the wave with the new Conservative government coming to power. It's
some very stormy weather we're seeing now. What will it be like when
the dust settles? It's hard to tell. But I guarantee you the
Conservatives are not keen on Canada being known as a seed-selling
country."

RCMP spokesperson Sylvain Leroux points out that the Heaven's Stairway
investigation began in 2004, long before anyone dreamed the impossible
dream of the Conservatives taking control of Parliament. "First of
all, this bust is not from out of nowhere," he says. "There had been
complaints from different levels of government, and from foreign
governments as well."

When prodded, Leroux acknowledged that most-if not all-of that
pressure had come from our clean-living neighbours to the south.
Something that comes as no surprise to St-Maurice.

"My guess, if you look at the Marc Emery case in B.C. with the U.S.
seeking to extradite him, is that at the same time they probably
expressed interest in busting other Canadian seed sellers as well, and
instead of letting the U.S. in to come and do it, like with Emery, the
RCMP said, 'Oh no, we're gonna take care of it ourselves,'" says
St-Maurice. "I think the Heaven's Stairway arrest is an attempt to
show our neighours that we're actually doing something about it."

Stay Local

St-Maurice, however, doesn't feel the crackdown on seed suppliers is
necessarily the worst thing Canadian legalization advocates could ever
hope for. In fact, he indirectly supports the RCMP on the issue.

"Look," says St-Maurice, "they went after Heaven's Stairway because of
the international shipping aspect. And I think we should prevent
people from exporting cannabis products from Canada. It's one thing to
turn a blind eye to selling seeds domestically, but when those seeds
are being shipped to the United States, where it's clearly illegal,
well, the RCMP has a responsibility to prevent our citizens from
breaking laws in other countries, even if they're doing it from here.
It's complicated because it becomes an international issue. One of the
key arguments against legalizing pot in Canada is that it will unleash
a flood of pot into the U.S., and, well, something like this sort of
helps to justify these arguments.

"My angle," continues the long-time anti-prohibition warrior, "is that
if Canada wants to be credible about legalizing pot, we've got to at
least show we can prevent it from being exported to places where it's
illegal. Otherwise we'll never be able to do it. My goal, our goal, is
to legalize pot in Canada, not anywhere else and not be an
inconvenience to any neighbours for doing so. By letting people
operate with this international seed shipping stuff, it doesn't bode
well for that. So, in a way, it's possible there's sort of an upside
to all of this."

Tell that to Baghdadlian and his crew, who face possible 10 year
prison sentences if found guilty.