WEED IN THE BACKYARD

So, it's official. Canada has gone to pot. In a speech last week,
George W. Bush outlined the nations on his list of illicit drug
producing countries. Although Canada's not as bad as Pakistan,
Colombia and Jamaica, Bush was "concerned" about our lax marijuana
laws and the fact that more Canadian pot was getting into the States.
All this even though the White House admits that most of the hard
drugs that make it into Canada come from the United States. That same
week, a whole spate of stories with "Canada" and "marijuana" as
keywords just happened to make headlines. Frontline offers some examples.

In Nicolet, Quebec, the Jean-Nicolet high school principal and the
mayor of Becancour complained that their students are not interested
in school or straight part-time jobs because they are all out in the
fields harvesting marijuana crops for $20 to $30 an hour. Thanks to
the combination of perfect weather and biker gangs, rural villages in
Quebec are awash with marijuana plants, rivalling even post-hippie
British Columbia. The Quebec provincial police said they are expecting
to uproot about 400,000 plants this year.

A Vancouver-based online pot mail-order company called Bud Buddy was
found to be using Canada Post as a mule to ship drugs into the U.S.
When faced with these accusations, Canada Post just shrugged and said
it is not in the business of inspecting people's mail.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer is arrested by his own
colleagues and charged with trying to smuggle 535 pounds of marijuana
from British Columbia into Washington State. The eight-year Custom's
veteran is reported to have said, "I'm one of us," and provided a
diplomatic passport.

Much to the dismay of legalization activists, the Da Kine Smokeshop
in Vancouver was busted by police for selling pot Amsterdam cafe-style
to any customer that walks in, not just legal medicinal users.
Investigators said the shop was grossing sales of $500,000 a month.
Activists say the shop has set back their cause by abusing the
police's trust.