CHECKING OUT THE POT FACTORY

Michael Maniotis was already standing at the front door of the Marijuana
Factory's grow operation in Queensborough when the provincial electrical
inspectors showed up promptly at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

At first, the bearded pot grower was indignant that two inspectors had
arrived, when he believed there was an agreement to allow only one
inspector - plus a reporter from the local newspaper - to tour the city's
first federally licensed marijuana growing facility.

After a little bit of fussing and fuming - something to set the tone for
the half-hour inspection - one inspector agreed to wait out in the car
while his partner was allowed to enter.

Maniotis turned to the reporter to acknowledge that he was being a bit
bullheaded in refusing to let both of the men enter. But he also has his
reasons.

"They know this is their one last chance to shut us down," says one of the
lead players in the nationwide battle to grow legal marijuana for medicinal
purposes.

As a founder of the Merlin Project - a pro-pot activist group with 3,000
members - Maniotis believes he is at the cutting edge of a major
breakthrough in Canadian health and drug policy.

Last month, the Marijuana Factory harvested its first crop - about 2.5
pounds of green B.C. bud - which was promptly doled out to Merlin Project
members such as Yoram Adler, who suffers from a chronic medical condition.

Adler's role is key to the Merlin Project. As a director of the operation,
he holds both the licence to possess marijuana and the licence to grow it
issued by Health Canada.

According to the federal government's Office of Cannabis Medical Access, a
total of 541 marijuana possession licences have been issued since July 30,
2001, when the federal government decided to allow the drug to be used by
people "suffering from grave and debilitating illnesses."

While Adler holds the licence, Maniotis is clearly the pot growing expert.

Before the inspector reaches the basement, where two separate grow rooms
are hidden behind doors made of plastic sheeting and duct tape, the first
safety problem is discovered and Maniotis is quick to offer a solution.

The electrical sockets in the upstairs walls are found to be improperly
grounded, but Maniotis insists the problem will be fixed immediately.

The downstairs of the home is the heart of the Marijuana Factory. Here are
two separate grow rooms, each lit with a single air-cooled, 1,000-watt lamp
that dangles from a chain hanging off the ceiling.

The main room holds the mother plant, a bushy 74-cm-tall marijuana sprig
that provides the clippings that will eventually grow into the harvested
material. The mother plant is surrounded by a round ceramic contraption
Maniotis calls 'the coliseum,' which holds 50 of the mother plant clippings
known as 'clones.'

When the clones grow large enough, they will be transplanted into larger
pots and moved into the second room, where the light and temperature is
rigidly controlled to ensure the plants produce the potent flowering buds.

Inside the grow rooms, the inspector finds more problems with the operation
and tells Maniotis that all his sockets must be properly grounded and those
grounds must have circuit interrupters.

At this point, the second inspector, Mario Conceicao, is invited into the
house to confirm the deficiencies found by his partner.

Conceicao says he has never seen a legal marijuana grow operation before.

Typically, electrical inspectors are only involved after police have shut
down an illegal grow operation and the homeowner has had to undergo
expensive repairs, he says.

After just a half-hour tour, the two inspectors leave the house to discuss
their findings and write their report.

All that Maniotis and Adler can do is wait for the verdict. And the
Marijuana Factory is left alone to continue their experiment until another
day.