MARKETING MARIJUANA MYTHOLOGY

Is Canada A Drug Haven, Or Is Our Bad Rap All Smoke And Mirrors?

Canada has become a major marijuana producer and exporter. Canadian
marijuana is super-potent and dangerous. Canada's laws are too soft to
deter growers and traffickers. Major organized crime syndicates control the
production and trafficking of Canadian pot.

These "facts" have been repeated over and over by officials, politicians
and police officers in Canada and the United States. With the federal
government promising the decriminalization of marijuana possession, these
claims are playing key roles. They are part of what "everybody knows."
Supporters and opponents of decriminalization alike usually accept and cite
them to suit their arguments.

But a review of government documents and independent research casts doubt
on each of these and other related claims. Some are merely dubious. Some
are contradicted by official sources. Some are exaggerations. A few are
simply false.

Is Canada going to pot?

Canadian marijuana production and trafficking have reached "epidemic
proportions," the RCMP has repeatedly claimed. "The fact that marijuana
production is on the rise is indisputable," insists one RCMP report. "In
2001, major Canadian law enforcement agencies seized close to 1.4 million
marihuana (sic) plants, a six-fold increase since 1993 .. Cultivation has
seen a major increase over the past decade: from a rate of 5 incidents per
100,000 population in 1990 to 29 in 2000."

And Canada's bountiful pot crop is going south, many say. John Walters, the
White House's "drug czar" -- the top anti-drug official -- told the
Vancouver Board of Trade that 95 per cent of Canada's multi-billion-dollar
marijuana production "goes to the U.S."

An RCMP "senior drug investigator," quoted anonymously by the Boston Globe,
was less precise but equally emphatic: "Most of it is going straight to the
U.S. market."

The situation is so bad that Tom Riley, a spokesman for the drug czar's
office, recently told CanWest News Service that the U.S. government added
Canada to its list of major drug-producing nations this year: "I think a
lot of eyebrows were raised about Canada being on a list with Colombia and
Guatemala and Mexico and Haiti and countries like that."

So is Canada really becoming the new Colombia? There are certainly
indications of growing marijuana production, but how much growth is not
known. Since 1998, the RCMP has pegged total marijuana production at 800
tonnes annually, but that figure is suspect because, as with most forms of
data about illicit drugs, Canadian numbers are sketchy at best. A report by
the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), an agency within the U.S.
Department of Justice, notes that Canada, unlike Mexico, does not have "a
statistically valid production estimate" of marijuana production.

As for the seizure and incident numbers cited by the RCMP, they are also
weak evidence: Higher law enforcement numbers may show an increase in
criminality, or they may show more law enforcement. Marijuana possession
charges, for example, soared throughout the 1990s, but that reflected
police behaviour, not an explosion in marijuana use. The fact is, no one
really knows how much pot is grown in this country, which makes claims of
"explosions" and "epidemics" dubious.

Whatever the reality of pot production in Canada, is it true that "95 per
cent" or "most" of it is being smuggled into the United States? Not
according to government documents. In its latest report, the RCMP states
"it is impossible to determine exactly what percentage of marijuana grown
in Canada is intended for the U.S. markets." A December 2001 report from
the NDIC is more blunt: "A number of international publications have
reported that approximately 50 to 60 per cent of the marijuana produced in
Canada is smuggled into the United States annually. However, in-depth
analysis and consultations between officials of both countries have
concluded that these estimates cannot be substantiated through current
reporting."

There is even less reason to think the United States is being "flooded"
with Canadian pot. A 2001 report from the NDIC noted that seizures of
incoming Canadian marijuana are "inconsequential" compared to total
American seizures of foreign marijuana. A 2003 report from the NDIC states:
"marijuana transported from Canada clearly amounts to only a small
percentage of all marijuana smuggled into the United States."

In fact, a recent U.S. Department of Justice study of the American
marijuana market -- which scarcely mentioned Canada at all -- concluded
that the total pot supply in the United States is somewhere between 10,000
tonnes and 23,800 tonnes: Assuming Canada's pot crop really is 800 tonnes,
it would make little difference to the U.S. supply even if every bud, leaf
and stem of Canadian pot were smuggled south.

It is also not true, despite what the drug czar's spokesman has said, that
Canada was added to the U.S. government's list of major drug-producing
countries. The fact that Canada has not been added is significant because
U.S. law states that a country must be added if, within its borders, "5,000
hectares or more of illicit cannabis are cultivated or harvested during a
year, unless the President determines that such illicit cannabis production
does not significantly affect the United States."

Clearly, U.S. analysts are satisfied either that Canada's marijuana crop is
not so big or that it "does not significantly affect the United States."
Nor is that likely to change: In 2001, the NDIC suggested smuggling from
Canada could increase "if the demand for high-grade marijuana in the United
States continues," but "when placed in perspective with the large
quantities of marijuana smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border, the threat
that marijuana smuggling from Canada poses to the United States will remain
low."

Not so with the drugs moving north from the U.S. into Canada. "The
smuggling of cocaine, liquid hashish, and marijuana through the United
States poses a threat to Canada," the NDIC stated in its 2001 report. "The
smuggling of hashish and, to a lesser extent, steroids, LSD, MDMA
(Ecstasy), and other drugs also poses a threat. Moreover, it is not
expected that the threat posed to Canada by the smuggling of these drugs --
particularly cocaine and marijuana -- will abate."

Are soft sentences the problem?

The RCMP has repeatedly blamed soft sentences given to marijuana growers
and traffickers for the growth of the trade. "Lenient sentences are what
makes Canada somewhat of a haven for marihuana (sic) growers, relative to
the United States," an RCMP report claimed. The U.S. government agrees and
has pushed Canada to introduce tougher laws.

The Canadian government seems to have conceded this point. As part of the
legislation that will decriminalize marijuana possession, the government
plans on making punishments for growing and selling marijuana tougher,
"which ought to reduce the problem," John Manley told the Toronto Star.
Health Minister Anne McLellan has suggested that the police should also be
given more money to crack down on marijuana growers.

It is true that penalties are much lighter in Canada than the United
States, where sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences usually
ensure tough punishment of growers and traffickers? As an RCMP report
notes, a Canadian "grower who is found guilty of possessing 45 kilos of
marijuana will face a maximum sentence of two years less a day in a
provincial jail. If prosecuted as a federal offence, an individual
convicted of the same crime in the United States will get between 33 and 87
months in a federal institution, depending on his/her criminal history."

But have severe punishments actually curtailed the marijuana trade in the
United States? There doesn't seem to be any evidence of that. The NDIC
noted, "96.9 per cent of state and local law enforcement agencies
nationwide describe the availability of marijuana as high or medium."
America's teenagers agree: "Marijuana appears to be available to almost all
high school seniors," concluded a 2001 University of Michigan study, which
found 89 per cent of students reported it was "very easy" or "fairly easy"
to get marijuana.

And the single largest source of marijuana in the United States is the
United States. Indoor and outdoor cultivation is widespread in the U.S.,
the NDIC notes, and "marijuana production is high."

Tougher sentences don't even seem to suppress drug use, let alone
trafficking. In 1998, the U.S. drug czar's office asked a blue-ribbon panel
of scientists directed by the prestigious National Research Council of the
National Academies of Science to review all evidence about what works and
what doesn't in drug control -- including the American experience with
decriminalization. In 2001, the panel reported "existing research seems to
indicate that there is little apparent relationship between severity of
sanctions prescribed for drug use and prevalence or frequency of use, and
the perceived legal risk explains very little in the variance of individual
drug use."

Is more money for enforcement the answer? Not judging by the experience of
the United States, which now spends roughly $40 billion a year fighting
drugs. It's also not true that Canada has been under-funding drug
enforcement: In 2001, Canada's auditor general found the federal government
alone (the provinces and cities actually investigate and prosecute most
drug crime) spends around $500 million a year on drugs, with 95 per cent of
that money going to law enforcement.

Is pot dangerously potent?

John Walters says the marijuana available today is dramatically more potent
and dangerous. Worst of all is Canadian marijuana, which he has called "the
crack cocaine" of marijuana.

"The potency of marijuana from Canada is several times the potency of the
marijuana we're getting from other sources," he recently told Global
National. Law enforcement officials on both sides of the border have said
that "B.C. Bud" is so potent that Canadian smugglers trade it in the U.S.
pound-for-pound for cocaine.

Federal health minister Anne McLellan is also alarmed, telling journalists
recently that Canada must wipe out grow-ops and stop being "an exporter of
this new high-potent strain of marijuana." The Boston Globe summed up the
conventional wisdom on pot potency in a recent article that warned
"Canadian weed has average THC levels of 15 per cent to 20 per cent, while
the primo stuff tops out at a mind-numbing 34 per cent. Latin American pot,
by contrast, has an average THC content of about 6 per cent. Garden variety
reefer smoked by hippies of the Woodstock eras had THC levels of about 2
per cent."

Little of this is true. A 2002 RCMP report cautions that exaggerated claims
about marijuana potency are being made in the media and warns that any such
claims should be based on "actual laboratory analysis results." The report
provides the results of two such analyses. Between 1996 and 1999, a total
of 3,160 samples of seized marijuana were tested for THC levels: The
average each year varied between 5.5 to six per cent; the top-rated sample
was 25 per cent, but samples of more than 16 per cent were extremely rare,
and "almost a third of the samples were under three per cent."

A similar analysis of Quebec samples found that in 2000, the average THC
content was 6.3 per cent, with a top sample of 18.5 per cent and a low of
.07 per cent.

Researchers agree that marijuana potency increased in the 1980s and 1990s,
but that increase was modest: Mitch Earleywine, a professor at the
University of Southern California, surveys the evidence in Understanding
Marijuana (Oxford University Press, 2002). He concluded pot in the United
States likely rose from 1.5 or two per cent to four or 4.5 per cent from
the 1970s to the 1990s.

It is true that marijuana grown in Canadian hydroponic operations is often
in the higher range of potency, but it is far from unique. "Growers in both
Canada and the United States have access to the same strains of cannabis
seeds and the same cultivation technologies," the NDIC reported in 2001.
"Therefore, growers in both countries are capable of producing the same
quality of high-grade marijuana."

Nor is Canadian pot as valuable as cocaine. "Reports of the reputed
exchange of Canadian marijuana for U.S. cocaine on a pound-for-pound ratio
are false," the NDIC declared.

But there's a more basic error underlying the claims about potent pot. "The
tacit assumption that increased potency translates into greater danger from
the drug may not be true," writes Earleywine. Hashish -- a derivative of
marijuana -- can have a THC content as high as 50 per cent. Hashish oil
(common in eastern and central Canada but little known in the West) can be
up to 70 per cent THC. But there is no evidence that hash or hash oil is
doing far more damage to users than ordinary weed.

Users adjust their consumption to suit drug potency. Just as someone
sipping pure vodka will not consume the same volume of liquid he does when
drinking beer, consumers of more potent pot simply inhale less smoke. This
is not mere theory. University of Michigan research on American teenagers'
drug habits, which has been ongoing since 1975, has found that as THC
content rose, teen pot smokers inhaled "less marijuana as measured by volume."

There's some irony in this. The one indisputable harm of smoking marijuana
is the irritation and damage it can inflict on the lungs, and "high-potency
marijuana may actually minimize risk for lung problems because less is
required to achieve the desired effects," writes Earleywine.

The RCMP and many politicians constantly emphasize the link between the
marijuana trade and organized crime.

"Some of the biggest criminal organizations in the world are behind this,"
RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli said at a conference of police
chiefs. "We've seen murders committed in the name of marijuana cultivation."

A 2002 RCMP report stated, "outlaw motorcycle gangs used to enjoy an almost
monopolistic situation when it came to marijuana grow operations, but they
now have to contend with the increased presence of Asian-based criminal
organizations in some parts of the country."

It seems, however, that the RCMP gave a different description of the
industry to their colleagues in Washington, D.C.

A January 2003 report of the NDIC states: "the RCMP reports that the
majority of cannabis cultivators are Canadian and operate independently but
further notes the continued involvement of outlaw motorcycle gangs
(primarily Hells Angels) and the growing dominance of Asian criminal groups
(typically Vietnamese) in marijuana production."

There's no question major gangs are involved in the marijuana trade, but
how much of the industry is really controlled by large, violent, powerful
syndicates? Given the secretive nature of the business, it's impossible to
answer that question definitively. But recent research suggests the truth
is far from the world of The Godfather.

Criminologist Frederick Desroches worked in Canada's prisons, where he
interviewed 50 high-level manufacturers, smugglers and traffickers of
marijuana and other drugs. A summary of his work appeared in an internal
RCMP magazine. (The complete study was recently published in Critical
Reflections on Transnational Organized Crime, Money Laundering and
Corruption, University of Toronto Press, 2003).

Desroches found a stark divide between what he called "criminal and
non-criminal drug traffickers and syndicates." The "criminal" traffickers
are the sort we might expect: lifelong criminals who rarely hold legitimate
jobs and are "generally willing to use violence in dealing with the
problems of the drug world."

The "non-criminal" traffickers, however, "typically have extensive
employment histories, associate with other law-abiding persons, begin their
criminal careers later in life, operate primarily at the wholesale level
and eschew the use of violence." Almost all the drug offenders of this sort
that Desroches interviewed had been legitimate entrepreneurs operating
small businesses -- body shop, tobacco store, used car lot -- before the
profits of the trade convinced them to try a new business. Most worked with
just a handful of trusted friends.

The big surprise was the proportion of the two groups: 35 of the 50 drug
offenders were of the "non-criminal" variety, while just 15 were hardcore
gangsters.

"The marijuana and hashish market, in particular, appears to attract a
variety of middle-class dealers who are not part of the criminal world and
who are typically non-violent," Desroches wrote. "Police also reported that
violence was uncommon in the marijuana and hashish trade."

Desroches' research also demolished the idea of large criminal hierarchies
controlling territory. "There is no evidence in this study of a Mafia-style
monopoly, near-monopoly, or cartel in the Canadian drug market." Instead,
"high-level traffickers work in small groups, are flexible in their
organization and division of labour, deal with a small number of clients,
insulate themselves from their illegal activities, maintain a low profile,
collect tremendous profits, and function as independent entrepreneurs."