SMOKE SCREEN

British Columbia acquired its lotus-land reputation back in the days when
the drug content of pot was pretty meek.

Pot users have been and continue to be portrayed as somewhat sloth-like,
more mellow of movement than non-medicated peers. They are teased about
having the munchies.

The pot people buy anonymously today is no longer the mild weekend weed
their parents used to snag.

Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the component that gives pot its oomph,
has risen dramatically in recent decades.

In the 1960s, the percentage of THC was in the single digits. Since growing
has moved indoors, hybridization has been used and operations started to
control all conditions under which the plants grow, the content has jumped.

The percentage is now routinely in the double digits, up to about nine times
higher than in the past.

Leave the medical issues aside. Canadians are divided about whether to allow
the medicinal use of pot and that's a whole other debate which often clouds
a key issue about modern marijuana.

Pot is now a huge business, and the criminal element has entered the scene.

The indoor grow operations are basically toxic sites due to the heavy use of
pesticides and fertilizer -- so much for pot being environmentally friendly
and benign. (Users have no idea how much of those chemicals they consume and
what lighting up does to pesticide and fertilizer residues.)

The South Cariboo, like many other communities, will invariably be home to
illegal grow operations, as well as users. Having large pot operations in
the area cannot be dismissed as a quaint rural custom. They end up costing
us all -- by putting illegal drugs of questionable quality out into society,
and through the taxes we must pay for policing, the courts and the penal
system.