POT FANS SNIFF OUT WAY TO SAVE THEIR SEA WEED

B.C. activists have begun spraying commuter ferries with the watered-down
essence of marijuana in a plan to stymie police dogs sniffing for the
illicit drug.

Wednesday marked the first of several "spray days," said a spokesman for
the B.C. Marijuana Party. That campaign of secretly spraying the decks of
ferries, said Michael Cost, is the most effective way of throwing drug dogs
off the scent of marijuana shipments.

The first covert operation occurred on a ferry travelling between Nanaimo,
B.C., and Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver, Mr. Cost told globeandmail.com
Thursday. It's something of a preferred smuggling route, say local police,
for marijuana growers on Vancouver Island looking to get their product to
the mainland market.

Exactly how many litres of a diluted THC solution - the active ingredient
in marijuana - were sprayed, is a secret, said Mr. Cost. But that liquid,
floated in an alcohol solution, was sprayed all over the ferry's deck and
should overwhelm police dogs sent to ferret out marijuana stashed in the
cars of commuters.

The home-made cologne is so pervasive as to cast a marijuana haze over
everything on the boat, said Mr. Cost. Police who have been searching for
marijuana on the ferries will probably be fogged out, he said.

It was on July 30 that West Vancouver Police led a battalion of
pot-sniffing police dogs on a search of a ferry travelling the
Nanaimo-Horseshoe Bay route.

Those canines did, indeed, sniff out about eight kilograms of the drug
hidden on board. Eight arrests resulted from that discovery. But, Constable
Tim Dean told globeandmail.com Thursday, the actual car inspections occured
after the ferry docked in Vancouver and search warrants had been issued.

Still the police action is an invasion of privacy, said Mr. Cost, and just
another example of the rights of B.C. citizens being sacrificed to the
province's war on drugs.

"We will continue to spray the decks of ferries to protect citizens from an
overzealous police force," said Mr. Cost, whose organization has actively
lobbied provincial and federal governments for the "full legalization of
marijuana."

But the covert sprayings, while problematic, may not in fact be criminal,
said Constable Dean.

"As far as the police are concerned this is all a publicity stunt," he
said. "The spraying would only become a criminal offense if it did affect
the dogs and if they were actually out on a search - its all very
hypothetical now."

What's much more certain, said Constable Dean, is that the hunt will
continue for marijuana on the ferries travelling between Vancouver Island
and the vast North American market.