POT EXPERT DISPUTES AVERAGE JOINT SIZE

SAANICH - Whenever police bust grow ops, they give a dollar estimate of the
amount they seized - street estimates that are often met with skepticism on
the street.

So last week when Saanich police announced they seized 11 kilograms of pot
and equated that to 55,000 joints, enough to last a single user 75 years,
Saanich News approached a pot-smoking expert.

That is ridiculous," said Philippe Lucas, head of the Vancouver Island
Compassion Society and Canadians for Safe Access, societies which supply
medicinal marijuana to those with a doctor's recommendation.

Lucas is a medical marijuana user himself and is a frequent critic of the
quality of medical pot grown by the Canadian government. He heads numerous
scientific studies in pot quality for medicinal use.

The man knows his pot.

According to Lucas, the police used far too small an estimate of the amount
of pot (0.2 grams) that goes into one joint.

I can assure you that is just a pinch, just a tiniest amount," he said.

At most, one can only get three joints from a gram, Lucas said.

And we're not talking about cannons from the '70s here," he said. Today's
joints are quite modest in size, probably because of the potency, Lucas said.

That means 11 kg produce 33,000 small (yet high quality) joints per year,
only enough to last a single user 45 years, smoking two joints a day.

That is still a lot of pot.

Saanich police Const. John Price wasn't impressed by Lucas's critique.

So he's making a fatty," Price said.

The 0.2-gram per joint estimate came from the department's street crime
unit, which have seen some skinny joints in their day by high school
students wanting to stretch their $20 purchase.

If he (Lucas) is growing his own, he is going to be more liberal," Price
added.