POT GROWERS INVADE QUEBEC FARMERS' FIELDS

Valued at $1b, Marijuana Most Profitable Cash Crop

MONTREAL -- Every harvest, he sees strange miniature crop circles in
his corn fields that anybody but a seasoned farmer might believe were
put there by aliens. The circles, staggered evenly along endless rows
of withering feed-corn stalks, are evidence of Quebec's most
profitable cash crop: marijuana. "By the time I get to my field
(usually in mid-October), the marijuana plants are long gone," he
says. "They cut it just after the first frost."

Like every farmer interviewed for this story, he didn't want his real
name used. Too many farmers have been threatened, shot at or seen
their equipment vandalized by what they believe to be pot growers.

This is the season when legions of alien trespassers invade the
countryside and cash in on the lucrative marijuana crop. It's a
nationwide phenomenon that in Quebec alone is worth about a billion
dollars.

"It's an industry that's putting a lot of money into the hands of
organized crime," said Lt. Jean Audette of Quebec provincial police.

"It's not just weed. It's a commodity that makes a fortune and that's
what makes it dangerous. All organized crime is involved."

Police now see biker gangs working together with Russian and Italian
crime groups. Staff-Sgt. Rick Barnum of Ontario's drug-enforcement
squad said most Canadian-grown marijuana goes to the U.S., where
traffickers get $3,000 to $4,000 a pound in the East and as much as
$7,000 in California.

"Our marijuana is considered to be phenomenal in other parts of the
world," he said. "It is traded for cocaine and it hits the streets in
Canada as a clean trade for cocaine. We're saturated with marijuana
grows."

As co-ordinator of Program Ciseaux in Quebec, Jean Audette is the man
ultimately responsible for destroying pot grows. It's not an easy job.

Last year, Quebec police confiscated 392,885 plants, compared with
73,491 in 1993. The huge increase reflects the enormous expansion of
marijuana cultivation.

Police say the pot-growing industry is one of the reasons for the
lawlessness that has taken hold in some communities. It's also behind
the threats and vandalism that have made farmers fearful of
challenging growers.

Another concern is that pot consumption appears to be rising in
Quebec's schools, particularly among boys. In some areas, educators
claim anywhere from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of boys smoke it
regularly. In the province's so-called pot valley along the fertile
banks of the St. Lawrence River, school officials worry that the
industry is criminalizing rural youth. They note that absenteeism is
rising and suspect it is because boys leave school to harvest the pot.

The mayor of Pierreville, Que., was even quoted as welcoming the pot
growers as good for the struggling rural economy.

"The problem is our society doesn't take it seriously," said Gerald
Dauphinais, commissioner of the regional school board of
Nicolet-Yamaska. "We have trivialized it."

While federal government reports have recommended decriminalizing pot,
no action has been taken and possession of pot remains a criminal
offence subject to fines or jail terms.

But normally police don't bother with simple possession, which is
defined in law as anything less than 30 grams -- about one ounce.

One officer said the result of this laissez-faire attitude is that
dealers enjoy an unfettered street market in small amounts of pot.

There are also concerns that pot is not the same "soft" drug it used
to be. Genetic manipulation has produced strains 10 to 20 times more
powerful than the weed smoked at the long-ago pop festivals such as
Woodstock.

Quebec police have confiscated pot with THC - the psychoactive
ingredient in marijuana - levels of plants as high as 22.5 per cent
- - far higher than the one-per-cent average common in the 1980s.

"One guy we caught growing it called it wheelchair weed - one toke
and you're paralysed," a police officer said.