MOUNTIE KEEN ON BUSTING 'B.C. BUD'

ORGANIZED crime is increasingly using the Trans Canada Highway to smuggle
high-grade marijuana -- so-called "B.C. Bud" -- across the country, but
standing in their way is RCMP Const. Kevin Mantie.

The Falcon Lake-based Mountie is behind one of the largest hydroponic
marijuana seizures ever seen in Manitoba -- 600 pounds worth $5 million on
the street. It was confiscated on Saturday at the West Hawk Lake truck
weigh scale at the Manitoba-Ontario boundary.

The massive drug haul -- it was found in a semi-trailer carrying cedar
trees from British Columbia -- was Mantie's third in as many months.

John Peter Gauthier, 45, of Abbotsford, B.C., has been charged with
possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.

He was released yesterday on a $5,000 cash bail and allowed to return home
under an agreement between the Crown and defence lawyer Sheldon Pinx.

Since the end of December, Mantie's been responsible for seizing 900 pounds
(408 kilos) of hydroponic marijuana during routine truck safety
inspections. The total street value of the three seizures is $7.3 million.
That includes a 200-pound dope seizure made last Thursday, when Mantie and
provincial transportation officials conducted a safety check on another
truck from Abbotsford, B.C. It was carrying cattle hides, but hidden in the
trailer were four large hockey bags of marijuana.

Mantie doesn't use a drug-sniffing dog or inside information about which
loads contain drugs. He simply checks the truckers' list of contents and
opens packages at random.

Mantie said yesterday he fully expects to make more seizures in the coming
weeks.

"If we can't get the grow operations, we'll take it this way," he said,
displaying some of the vacuum-packed marijuana.

Mountie drug section Staff Sgt. Dave Roach said the marijuana seizures are
a sign B.C.-based crime groups are trying to take advantage of the
country's roads to bring potent marijuana to their eastern customers.

"There's a large market in Eastern Canada and there's a large production
centre in Western Canada," he said. The problem for drug pushers is that
all trucks going east have to go through Mantie at the West Hawk Lake
scales. However, he's only one of a handful of officers inspecting trucks.

"We definitely don't have enough people on the highway doing this type of
work," Roach said.

Roach added the marijuana from the two most recent seizures -- Mantie's
first bust was Dec. 28 for 100 pounds -- was weighed out by the pound or
half-pound and doubled packed in plastic bags. It was then stuffed into
large black hockey bags.

In the largest seizure, hockey bags of marijuana were packed into a large
wood crate which was them sealed with silicone caulking along the seams.

Mantie and Roach said they have no idea how much marijuana is moving from
B.C. to other parts of Canada -- most often transported by unwitting
truckers who are hired to only drive the semi.

"Many times they don't know what's in the back of the truck," Roach said.
"They're just hired to deliver it to an address."

The problem is so bad, law enforcement in B.C. have began to lobby Ottawa
for more resources to crack down on clandestine grow operations and their
links to organized crime. Recent estimates have placed the B.C. marijuana
growing business at about $6 billion, involving 100,000 people.

B.C. marijuana is currently in high demand because its growers, using
sophisticated indoor gardens, can produce more potent marijuana with THC
content of up to 30 per cent, compared with the 10 or 12 per cent THC
contained in marijuana grown in Hawaii.