HUGE MARIJUANA FACTORY WAS ONE STRANGE JOINT

BARRIE, ONT. -- For the workers at Canada's biggest indoor marijuana
farm, there was no summer, no winter, and no day or night. Instead,
there was the artificial glow of more than a thousand industrial
lights, the gurgle of chemicals and mattresses set in windowless
concrete rooms. And of course there was the endless task of caring for
more than 30,000 high-grade marijuana plants that produced an annual
cash crop worth an estimated $100-million.

This was scientific farming taken to the extreme. The workers ate in a
makeshift cafeteria and worked shifts that ran around the clock, 365
days a year. The plants were fed a carefully calculated mixture of
chemicals that boosted their potency, or THC content. To make sure
that the crop matured as quickly as possible, the lights were hooked
up to computerized timers. The harvested plants were dried in labelled
racks, then vacuum-packed for shipment.

And all of it took place just metres away from one of the busiest
highways in Canada.

This is the strange world that police discovered last weekend when
they checked out an implausible tip -- that someone had set up a giant
marijuana farm inside a closed-down Molson's brewery in Barrie. The
tip turned out to be right.

Since early Saturday morning, police have been exploring the biggest
indoor marijuana operation ever found in Canada -- a
6,000-square-metre farm equipped with "state of the art" equipment and
facilities for as many as 50 workers. Investigators have found
themselves staggered by the scale and the audacity of the enterprise.

"To use a retail term, this was what you would call a big-box
approach," said Wayne Frechette, Barrie's chief of police services.

"It was not a Mom and Pop operation."

Before the weekend was over, the giant pot bust was virtually the only
news in Barrie, a pleasant city of just over 100,000.

"Welcome to what appears to have become the marijuana capital of
Huronia," Mr. Frechette said at a heavily attended press conference
yesterday. "This is not a title that the city of Barrie takes pride
in."

Although police are still investigating, it appears that the marijuana
farm was operated by an organized crime syndicate that rented space in
the former brewery, which was closed by Molson's in 2000. After the
closing, the site was sold to an investment firm that leases space to
a number of companies that operate on the site, including a coffee
roaster and a trucking firm. Investigators said they're still trying
to determine the name of the company that leased the space used for
the marijuana farm.

"The ownership is complicated," said Deputy Commissioner Vaughn
Collins of the OPP's Organized Crime Unit. "We're still working on
that."

Police believe the indoor farm was in operation for at least a year
before the weekend raid. The former brewery site provided a
near-perfect cover for the marijuana operation, investigators said.

"If you tried to set something like this up in a little village, you'd
be noticed right away," said Detective Sergeant Rick Barnum of the
OPP's Drug Enforcement Unit. "But in a place like that, there was
nothing unusual about trucks coming or going."

The raid on the pot farm resulted in nine arrests. Although police
would not elaborate, those arrested appear to be workers who were
tending the plants. Police say the operation was backed by organized
crime, but say they have no clear answers about who set it up. "We're
still working our way toward the top of the organization," Det. Sgt.
Barnum said.

The marijuana farm was a self-contained world that occupied almost
half of the 11,600-square-metre brewery site. The facility included
more than 30,000 marijuana plants, 1,000 high-powered growing lamps,
hydroponic trays, an irrigation system and tanks filled with
specialized chemicals that were used to boost the potency of the
plants. There were also dormitory facilities that could house up to 50
people. Police said the facility was staffed around the clock.

Many of the plants were growing inside giant steel vats that were once
used to brew Molson's most popular brands of beer. The vats were six
metres wide and 30 metres long, with watertight doors. The vats
provided an ideal growing environment, police said, since it was easy
to control the humidity and temperature levels inside.

The Barrie marijuana farm is part of a burgeoning national trend that
has turned Canada into one of the world's larger exporters of
marijuana. According to statistics kept by the U.S. Customs Service,
the amount of marijuana seized at the U.S.-Canada border has risen
sharply over the past few years. In 1998, border officials seized 369
kilograms of marijuana destined for the United States from Canada. By
2002, the amount had risen to 9,477 kilos.

Deputy Commissioner Collins said indoor marijuana operations have
become a $1-billion a year operation in Ontario alone.

"Commercial marijuana facilities have reached epidemic proportions in
Ontario," he said. "There are more of them every day. There aren't
enough people in Ontario to consume all the marijuana we produce."

Although the rising level of Canadian drug exports to the United
States has generated fears of a U.S. backlash, Washington appears
supportive -- at least so far -- of police efforts in Canada. John
Walters, director of national drug control policy, issued a statement
yesterday praising the Barrie raid.

"I applaud the professionalism and persistence of Canadian
law-enforcement officers for keeping these thousands of marijuana
plants off Canadian and American streets, and away from our young people."

Experts in the field say the boom in the Canadian marijuana industry
has been sparked by the comparative leniency of courts in this country
when it comes to drug crimes. Police say most people caught growing
marijuana in Canada get only a fine. In the United States, the same
offence usually draws a jail sentence of three to seven years.

"This is a high-profit, low-risk operation," Deputy Commissioner
Collins said. "The profits are huge. The sentence is short. That's
what draws people to it."

The Barrie pot farm is simply an extreme example of the indoor
marijuana trend, according to investigators. They said the equipment
in the facility was worth millions, and included elaborate electrical,
irrigation and chemical systems. The facility was designed for the
needs of the plants, not the humans who attended to them -- the
temperature was "tropical," and the air was pungent with the scent of
the chemicals used to stimulate the marijuana's growth rate and THC
levels.

"It wasn't a nice place to be," said Det. Sgt. Barnum after touring
the facility. "When you come out of there, you feel like taking a
long, long shower. Det. Sgt. Barnum said it was "sad" that Barrie had
become known as a centre of marijuana production. "It's not what we
want to be associated with."