CANADIAN CANNABIS: U.S. USERS CRAVE B.C. BUD

BLAINE, Wash. - For decades the drug smuggling war has raged to the south
in dusty Mexican border towns or along the sparkling waters of the Caribbean.

But in the cool evergreen forests of the Pacific Northwest, a new front has
opened up thanks to a potent breed of pricey Canadian marijuana. B.C. Bud
is so sought after in the United States that it has been known to trade on
the street dollar for dollar with cocaine, federal law enforcement
officials say.

Named for its birthplace in British Columbia, the high-grade pot is
wreaking havoc on the once sleepy northern border. Enterprising smugglers
are using kayaks, horse trailers, Army trucks and even a cage holding a
live bear to sneak it into the U.S. They tuck packages into fishmeal or
coffee to avoid drug-sniffing dogs. Private planes dip into U.S. airspace
and drop hockey bags filled with the stuff to couriers waiting in the woods
on ATVs.

While seizures of marijuana along the southern U.S. border declined in
fiscal year 2002, along the northern border they exploded - soaring more
than 300 percent from the prior year, according to U.S. Customs and Border
Protection officials.

In exchange, shipments of cocaine, guns and money are flowing north to Canada.

"It's the new frontier," said Peter Ostrovsky, an agent with Immigration
and Customs Enforcement who came to the Northwest after working drug cases
in Miami.

"This is the only place in the U.S. I've seen where there's two-way
traffic. Drugs coming in and out."

The surge in seizures is due, at least in part, to heightened security at
the border in the wake of the terrorist attacks. More car trunks are being
popped and sophisticated new X-ray equipment allows agents to peek inside
idling tractor-trailers without ever opening a door.

Margaret Fearon, port director at the border checkpoint in this small
outpost 30 miles south of Vancouver, said that when more vehicles are
searched more drugs are found.

But law enforcement officials on both sides of the international boundary
also believe the number of drugs on the move has risen and is pushing eastward.

The situation is so serious that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
just stationed an agent in Vancouver. And the White House, in its annual
report on the global drug problem this year, singled out Canada for the
first time.

Things could get worse now that Canada appears poised to decriminalize
marijuana for personal use. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien's
administration introduced legislation in late May that would essentially
make possession of small amounts of pot equivalent to a traffic ticket. But
the bill also would boost penalties for growing and trafficking marijuana.

While Britain and Australia have made similar moves to lessen penalties for
marijuana possession, it is Canada that shares a 4,000-mile land border
with the U.S. and American officials are not pleased.

Canada and the U.S. do about a $1 billion of trade a day and top U.S.
officials have warned their Canadian counterparts that easing marijuana
laws could lead to heightened inspections along the border, said Jennifer
de Vallance a spokeswoman for the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are struggling to control the
explosion but admit their hands are tied by a justice system that is
notoriously lenient when it comes to marijuana.

Only rarely do marijuana offenders do jail time in Canada and when they do
it's for an average of just a few months, said Sgt. Brian McDonald of the
RCMP's Greater Vancouver Drug Section.

Most of the stiffer sentences have been struck down by the appeals courts,
he said.

"We are hurt by the Canadian Justice system. It's a gripe," said RCMP
Superintendent Bill Ard.

Police in Canada have had to make do with shutting down some of the 11,000
marijuana-growing operations only to watch them spring up again somewhere else.

In a sign of how permissive things have become, the counterculture magazine
High Times recently dubbed Vancouver as its top destination for getting
good pot, noting that having an indoor marijuana growing room is "almost as
common as having a den."

In British Columbia, it's estimated that B.C. Bud is a $2.8 billion-a-year
industry, raking in more than the total for the province's legitimate
agriculture industry combined.

The marijuana plants are carefully nurtured indoors hydroponically - rooted
in water and nutrients, not soil - often using high-tech equipment to
precisely regulate temperature and light so that growers can harvest up to
six lucrative crops a year.

The resulting supercharged pot is worth about $2,000 a pound in the
Vancouver area. That price tag doubles as soon as it crosses the border
into the U.S. Once it reaches Southern California it can reach $6,000 a pound.

Why such a demand? The high is a lot higher. Woodstock-era marijuana had a
THC content, or potency, of 2 percent. The current crop coming in from
Mexico runs an average of 6 percent. B.C. Bud's THC content can rise to 25
percent.

The trade is run largely by Vietnamese gangs and outlaw biker gangs like
the Hell's Angels. Competition between them has become increasingly
violent, fueled by the guns that are streaming back into Canada as part of
the illicit drug trade, Ard of the RCMP said.

As security clamps down in western Washington State, some smugglers have
set their sights further east on the more remote border in the middle of
the country and on border crossings in Detroit or Buffalo.

Some traffickers are even attempting to trek through the rough terrain of
the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

And Puget Sound, honeycombed with islands and winding inlets and coves, is
another popular route, where smugglers sometimes zip back across the border
into Canadian water and wave at their American pursuers.

"It's a smugglers paradise," said Mike Butz, officer in charge of the Coast
Guard cutter Wahoo, which patrols the area.

Other traffickers have grown even more creative. A large stash of B.C. Bud
was found recently in the cage of a large black bear, allegedly being
transported to Hollywood for a movie.

The Canadian haul still pales in comparison to the tonnage that is flowing
over from Mexico and other points south. In fiscal year 2002, 19,405
pounds, were seized on the northern border compared to 1.2 million pounds
on the southwest border, Customs figures show.

But Customs agents along the northern border said that doesn't take into
account the value of the crop. Canadian pot can be six to 20 times more
expensive than the Mexican variety, according to the DEA.

U.S. and Canadian officials are working cooperatively to go after the
ringleaders.

The problem: the penalties are tougher in the U.S. and most of the kingpins
are in Canada. John McKay, U.S. Attorney in Seattle, said they are working
on better extradition procedures and better timing of arrests.

"There's a clear understanding that in some of these cases it's a lot
better to let them get arrested in the United States," McKay said.