WHERE THERE'S SMOKE...

While they are unlikely ever to feature in How To Be a Gardener, the Snow
White seeds are nevertheless very popular. They're Jimmy Ward's
bestsellers, in fact. A packet of 10 will set you back UKP42, but they sell
out, Ward said in The Money Programme (BBC2), like you wouldn't believe.

Most likely Alan Titchmarsh wouldn't approve, as the Snow White seeds grow
into cannabis plants, though he surely couldn't help but be impressed by
the green fingers of the growers.

Using the same methods and techniques that tomato growers employ, cannabis
cultivators produce impressive harvests in as little as six weeks. These
harvests - processed, dried, pressed or turned into little brown bricks of
hash - are what Ward plans to sell in his cannabis cafe in Bournemouth.
With an imminent downgrading from a class B to a class C drug, Ward sees a
future in cannabis. "There's money to be made," he chuckled, a spliff
speculator, a hemptrepreneur.

Like any good salesman, Ward knows his product and, by the end of the film,
so did we. Ward did his first deal at 14, smokes when he's not working, and
has a large and varied assortment of accessories embossed, emblazoned and
decorated with the iconic cannabis leaf. The Money Programme cameras
followed him to Amsterdam, where he attended a course in cafe management.
As well as learning that the best hash is fibrous (and hand-rolled in
Morocco) and the best skunk is sparkly (under a microscope, its active
ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol twinkles), Ward got to try all different
kinds of the stuff. "Refreshing," he said, doing his best Jilly Goolden
impersonation, between puffs. "None of the usual dryness." As the cafe
owner proudly proclaimed, "I run not a winery but a weedery." Indeed, with
the hand-rolled Moroccan (no doubt kneaded by peasant farmers on raffia
mats) and the connoisseur-speak that was going on in Haarlem ("the centre
of global best practice"), I was half expecting a whole drawer of the stuff
to be produced, stamped with one of those Soil Association accreditations
for organic produce.

This was by far the most interesting part of the documentary and really,
more investigation and analysis of the Dutch experience and less of Ward's
escapades in Bournemouth would have made for a better programme, but it was
not to be. Back beside the seaside, Ward's search for premises went well -
apart from when he walked into a scaffolding pole, which was, I am sure,
completely coincidental and not remotely drugs-related - until the
authorities and the media found out about his plans.

After visits from camera crews and journalists, Ward and his chums from
Stockport (James, Elwood and Coops) were arrested, an occupational hazard,
one supposes, when your trade is illegal.

Upon his release, Ward was undaunted, vowing to continue in his crusade.

Of course, what any of this had to do with The Money Programme's brief is
anyone's guess. Once, the programme had Maya Even perched elegantly on a
blue sofa and making the public sector borrowing requirement sound sexy,
but now it would seem that all a subject needs to get attention from the
Money Programme is the faintest hint that somebody somewhere might make
money out of it. In Jimmy Ward's case, the colour of money was brown and
his story was interesting, but there was precious little economic analysis
- - or in fact, any kind of analysis at all - which made this film nothing
other than ordinary.

Is it ever a good day down at Chicago's County General? In ER (Channel 4),
Abby - the new Nurse Hathaway - was mooning over Kovac, while Kovac was put
through the emotional wringer by lying girlfriend Nicole; Dr Greene was
having more difficulties with his wayward daughter, who probably hates him
for naming her after Jennifer Aniston's character in Friends; and Benton
was in court fighting for custody of his son. "Don't get too emotional,"
his lawyer warned him, demonstrating her complete lack of insight into
Illinois' grumpiest man. In fact, only Dr Weaver seems to be having
niceness in her life, getting a date with the female firefighter who saved
her from electrocution last week, after their eyes met over the firewoman's
gashed palm. It wouldn't happen to a vet.