DEADLY JOURNEY TO A SINGLE PUFF

Pot User's Recreation Supplied By Fiercely Protective Crooks

BRAMPTON -- Where there's smoke, there's a buyer.

In this case, his name is Stephen, a hard-working Toronto salesman,
divorced father, who, once or twice a week, inhales deeply in from a
pipe rich in Canada's finest illegal weed.

He takes the train to work.

Has a great relationship with his children, now young
adults.

And is likely a typical, mainstream consumer of marijuana grown in
this country.

He is like many of you reading this.

On a quiet night, he'll light up, push back any nagging cares, and
find relaxation in the sweet draws of forbidden puffs of smoke.

"It's less harmful than alcohol, pleasant ... increases creativity and
relieves stress," he explains.

"I know lawyers who use it, and one doctor as well."

On the day we speak, a friend in British Columbia has sent him a
favourite book. The buddy included, between the pages, a small pouch
of B.C.-grown pot.

Not surprisingly, Stephen would like to see possession of the drug --
especially in small amounts -- decriminalized. He is not alone. Pot,
experts say, runs only second to alcohol -- excluding caffeine and
nicotine -- in worldwide popularity.

But this isn't about the legalization debate. It's about Stephen's
single pipe of marijuana, and the black market supply chain which
currently gets it to his living room on any Friday night.

He may believe it ends in a harmless distraction, but that's not the
path it's taken to get to him.

The current route is often dangerous, sometimes deadly, and, in the
end, puts money into the pockets of criminals who are not interested
in personal freedom, but do care about protecting profits.

Stephen's pipe is filled with part of the contents of a single, fat
bud. He churns it up in a coffee grinder, in one quick blast, and can
get two to four joints from it.

It's a powerful bit of pistillate hemp high -- much more than when
Stephen was a teenager, or 3,000 years ago, when users in India first
reported its intoxicating effects.

The streets are filled with unsubstantiated legends of local growers
who have found secret ways to up the impact of their products --though
this could just be clever marketing.

Image into reality

Stephen buys his little plastic bag of pot from a friend who sells it
to a small group. This is the middle man -- the retailer, in any other
industry.

Albert is one, though not Stephen's current source.

A part-time musician who runs a janitorial company from his mother's
house -- after a recent marriage breakup, Albert is 40 years old. He's
sold marijuana -- trafficked, according to the law -- for years.

"My house always had people around it," he says. "It sort of looked
like a drug house, with so many people in and out. So I thought, why
not make it .. official."

About once a week, he buys 50 grams from a source, then sells it off
in "fivers" -- five-gram baggies.

"You'd be surprised by the people who use it daily -- from
professional to working men," he explains.

Albert pays between $7 to $9 per gram. Then, he turns around and sells
it for $10 a gram. This is half the $20-a-gram price police say is the
standard rate.

"It doesn't make me rich -- it pays for my own puff," he says of his
own one-or two-gram daily habit.

He's not happy with the thought that his teenage daughter may try to
experiment after growing up in a house where drugs were used and sold
- -- though not in front of her. His fears may be well-founded. Recent
surveys have found pot use among Canadian teens is double what it was
in the 1980s.

"I know where it comes from," he says of the pot he sells. "A while
back I heard about a biker war over it, and thought, 'that's what I'm
involved in?'"

Upsurge in busts

Before it reaches Albert, the pot can go through a couple hands.
Though the more dealers involved, the lower the profit down the line.
Often it comes to him soon after it leaves a grow house -- the likely
starting point in the journey of Stephen's single puff.

Because he, and Albert, and countless others, buy as they do, the
number of grow houses in this province increased by over 250% between
2000 and 2002.

In Peel Region alone, local drug cops busted 376 grow houses last
year, up from 31 in 2000. Recent estimates are that every grow house
- -- growing 200 to 400 plants -- gives $600,000 a year to organized
crime, including biker gangs and Asian concerns.

Ontario police chiefs say the operations are draining resources and
threatening communities.

Outside a new home in the east end of Brampton, masked and heavily
armed officers from the Peel Regional Police Green Team -- specially
formed to crack down on the grow houses -- line up, hand on one
another's shoulders, by the front door. It is the first of two search
warrants they'll exercise on suspected grow houses that day. In a
well-rehearsed bit of choreography, they breach the front door,
demanding anyone inside to freeze -- just as a dog bolts out the door
and heads down the street.

They find a man, in his 20s, upstairs -- within reach of a foot-long,
curved dagger.

"We're finding more and more weapons," says Green Team Det. Scott
Harrison as he holds up the knife -- its silver head carved in the
shape of an alien.

"They're protecting their investment."

Kids in house

The man never went for the knife, to save just over 100 pot plants
growing in his basement. The bust is relatively small -- $130,000
worth of drugs. The cold outdoor air is thick with the smell of the
plants as they're hauled out of the home. The suspect -- head low --
is brought out as well, escorted by officers.

"Why's he in handcuffs?" a neighbour's seven-year-old son asks his
father, as they watch from the sidewalk.

"He did something bad," explains the father.

While police couldn't confirm it, neighbours say two young children
have lived inside the grow house.

One study found 10,000 kids lived in grow houses between 2000 and
2003.

It is not a good place to grow up. Ignoring the hazardous mould, which
can grow from the moist air, and the chemicals that are often used and
the threat of fires which routinely happen due to badly wired
operations, there is the real threat of someone trying to rip off the
home. Murders are not uncommon.

Last October, 25-year-old Chinese national Meng Quing Yu was killed
during a shoot-out while he and five others defended their Wellpark
Blvd. grow house from another gang. His murder remains unsolved.

Some growers have set up traps to warn off those breaking in. The
measures include live wires attached to doors and windows.

Police say unless someone is killed, or seriously injured, they are
never told when most grow homes are invaded by competitors.

Det.-Sgt. Karen Noakes of the York Regional Police Drug Squad said one
in every 100 homes in the region could be growing pot. The trend is
for smaller operations, with families living inside to tend to the
crop, which turns around every three months. Last year, social
services were called in 22 times for kids living in grow houses in her
region.

"Let's talk about this as what it is -- a business," Noakes
says.

Part of the price of doing business is having Noakes, or other police,
come through your door.

But courts, officials complain, are more likely to give a suspended
sentence or a small fine to growers. What police want to see is a
two-year minimum sentence.

Many of the homes are rented. By the time the growers leave -- having
busted floors for venting, changed electrical panels and had chemicals
seep into carpets and walls -- tens of thousands of dollars worth of
damage will be left behind. To supplement the grow houses, ordinary
people will, each, pay an extra $50 in yearly hydro costs to make up
for stolen power.

If the pot grown inside doesn't end up in Stephen's pipe, it most
often heads south across the border. Since 9/11, seizures at
U.S.-Canada crossings have increased by 80%. The risk may be worth it.
A pound of marijuana can sell for $2,000 Cdn here, but the same
product in California can go for $6,000 US.

A portion of the grass heading into the U.S. will be used as trade --
the price of cocaine, and even guns, which will end up on Toronto
streets. It's just innovative business for an industry worth billions.

While last week's record-breaking pot bust at the old Molson plant on
Hwy. 400 will, experts say, cause a momentary dip in the supply chain
of marijuana, especially into the U.S., the lull will only be temporary.

Because there's a demand down the line. Ending up -- past gangs and
guns and kids and police raids -- into the breath and lives of average
people like Stephen.