POT CROPS TAKE OVER RURAL QUEBEC

PIERREVILLE, Que. -- The taint of an exploding pot trade is growing
faster than the corn fields in this small farming community, leaving
frustrated locals with an ominous new town nickname.

"Bienvenue a Stoner City," said Jean-Francois Cote, a farmer who
recently found 220 marijuana plants grown secretly by drug gangs in
his field.

"That's how sad it has become. This is how we're starting to think of
ourselves. That is the worst part."

Cote's black humour, welcoming a visitor with this rough translation
of his Pierreville hometown's name, tries to make light of the dark
side of this pretty farming region along the St. Lawrence River.

Along the fertile valley about halfway between Montreal and Quebec
City, pot growers have infiltrated farmers' fields and recruited high
school students to harvest the crop.

The region has quickly become a drug-growing leader. Statistics show
police seized more marijuana plants in Quebec in 2003 than they found
in B.C. Pierreville has become the epicentre of Quebec's marijuana
cultivation. Provincial police officers at the local detachment have
run out of pins for their maps to mark the scores of pot fields they
have found hidden in the tall corn.

The weed is so plentiful, a visitor with a few directions from a local
resident needs only an hour to find marijuana plants scattered among
the corn.

A few kilometres further down the secluded road, police officers pull
up plants and haul them out with all-terrain vehicles. The cops'
harvest started a month ago and will continue through the end of
October. Provincial police are on pace to pluck out about 400,000
plants in rural Quebec this year.

"This is what we do, five days a week," said Lieut. Donat Massicotte
as he loads the plants into a rented cube van.

A local high school principal says a handful of students are skipping
school and ditching legitimate work to harvest pot. They eventually
show up to school with fancy new clothes, sports cars and big wads of
cash.

"Many of them are not at all subtle," said Claude Bernier, a principal
in nearby Nicolet.

Bernier worries some of his students are learning the allure of easy
money. Many harvesters earn $25 an hour and can often pocket a big
stash of pot. It's much easier and more rewarding than the usual
part-time work available to teens.

"It's a bad lesson that all the kids are learning, even the ones who
don't go out there, that there are easy ways to make money with no
constraints and no responsibilities," Bernier said.

Like hundreds of farmers in central Quebec, Cote has found himself
questioned by police and the subject of gossip by his neighbours, even
though he reported his find to police.

His friends in the trendy Plateau district of Montreal asked him if he
can hook them up with weed.

"The wretched stench of this is starting to stick to all of us," said
Cote, a 29-year-old father of three who says he's never touched pot.

Farmers who go to the police, like Cote did when he found the plants
on his land, are often intimidated and offered bribes to keep quiet.

"When a burly guy with tattoos shows up at your door and threatens to
throw a match in your barn and then leaves a few hundred dollars in
the mailbox, it's pretty tempting to keep quiet," Cote said.

Mysterious barn fires have broken out, shots have been fired at
buildings and equipment. Farmers have found booby traps, hidden pits,
explosives and animal traps in their fields. Police have arrested
armed guards staking out crops.

"The greatest joy for any farmer is to go out in the field and see how
the crop is doing," Cote said. "We're starting to be afraid to go out
there."

Local teachers, farmers, political leaders, doctors and police
officers have struck a committee to look for solutions. They've had no
luck so far.

Becancour Mayor Maurice Richard says the biggest hurdle is getting
people to admit that drugs are quietly taking over their community.

Some farmers turn a blind eye or actively help the pot growers, he
said. Adults look the other way as the kids head into the fields.

"Everyone becomes an accomplice," Richard said. "It's like a kind of
omerta, it's an implied rule that you don't talk about it. Everyone
knows but nobody reacts because everyone is tainted. It's
unimaginable."