Pubdate: Sun, 08 Jun 2003
Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)
Copyright: 2003 The Billings Gazette
Contact:  http://www.billingsgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/515
Author: Shannon McCaffrey, Knight Ridder News

CANADIAN CANNABIS: U.S. USERS CRAVE B.C. BUD

BLAINE, Wash. - For decades the drug smuggling war has raged to the south 
in dusty Mexican border towns or along the sparkling waters of the Caribbean.

But in the cool evergreen forests of the Pacific Northwest, a new front has 
opened up thanks to a potent breed of pricey Canadian marijuana. B.C. Bud 
is so sought after in the United States that it has been known to trade on 
the street dollar for dollar with cocaine, federal law enforcement 
officials say.

Named for its birthplace in British Columbia, the high-grade pot is 
wreaking havoc on the once sleepy northern border. Enterprising smugglers 
are using kayaks, horse trailers, Army trucks and even a cage holding a 
live bear to sneak it into the U.S. They tuck packages into fishmeal or 
coffee to avoid drug-sniffing dogs. Private planes dip into U.S. airspace 
and drop hockey bags filled with the stuff to couriers waiting in the woods 
on ATVs.

While seizures of marijuana along the southern U.S. border declined in 
fiscal year 2002, along the northern border they exploded - soaring more 
than 300 percent from the prior year, according to U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection officials.

In exchange, shipments of cocaine, guns and money are flowing north to Canada.

"It's the new frontier," said Peter Ostrovsky, an agent with Immigration 
and Customs Enforcement who came to the Northwest after working drug cases 
in Miami.

"This is the only place in the U.S. I've seen where there's two-way 
traffic. Drugs coming in and out."

The surge in seizures is due, at least in part, to heightened security at 
the border in the wake of the terrorist attacks. More car trunks are being 
popped and sophisticated new X-ray equipment allows agents to peek inside 
idling tractor-trailers without ever opening a door.

Margaret Fearon, port director at the border checkpoint in this small 
outpost 30 miles south of Vancouver, said that when more vehicles are 
searched more drugs are found.

But law enforcement officials on both sides of the international boundary 
also believe the number of drugs on the move has risen and is pushing eastward.

The situation is so serious that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration 
just stationed an agent in Vancouver. And the White House, in its annual 
report on the global drug problem this year, singled out Canada for the 
first time.

Things could get worse now that Canada appears poised to decriminalize 
marijuana for personal use. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien's 
administration introduced legislation in late May that would essentially 
make possession of small amounts of pot equivalent to a traffic ticket. But 
the bill also would boost penalties for growing and trafficking marijuana.

While Britain and Australia have made similar moves to lessen penalties for 
marijuana possession, it is Canada that shares a 4,000-mile land border 
with the U.S. and American officials are not pleased.

Canada and the U.S. do about a $1 billion of trade a day and top U.S. 
officials have warned their Canadian counterparts that easing marijuana 
laws could lead to heightened inspections along the border, said Jennifer 
de Vallance a spokeswoman for the White House Office of National Drug 
Control Policy.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are struggling to control the 
explosion but admit their hands are tied by a justice system that is 
notoriously lenient when it comes to marijuana.

Only rarely do marijuana offenders do jail time in Canada and when they do 
it's for an average of just a few months, said Sgt. Brian McDonald of the 
RCMP's Greater Vancouver Drug Section.

Most of the stiffer sentences have been struck down by the appeals courts, 
he said.

"We are hurt by the Canadian Justice system. It's a gripe," said RCMP 
Superintendent Bill Ard.

Police in Canada have had to make do with shutting down some of the 11,000 
marijuana-growing operations only to watch them spring up again somewhere else.

In a sign of how permissive things have become, the counterculture magazine 
High Times recently dubbed Vancouver as its top destination for getting 
good pot, noting that having an indoor marijuana growing room is "almost as 
common as having a den."

In British Columbia, it's estimated that B.C. Bud is a $2.8 billion-a-year 
industry, raking in more than the total for the province's legitimate 
agriculture industry combined.

The marijuana plants are carefully nurtured indoors hydroponically - rooted 
in water and nutrients, not soil - often using high-tech equipment to 
precisely regulate temperature and light so that growers can harvest up to 
six lucrative crops a year.

The resulting supercharged pot is worth about $2,000 a pound in the 
Vancouver area. That price tag doubles as soon as it crosses the border 
into the U.S. Once it reaches Southern California it can reach $6,000 a pound.

Why such a demand? The high is a lot higher. Woodstock-era marijuana had a 
THC content, or potency, of 2 percent. The current crop coming in from 
Mexico runs an average of 6 percent. B.C. Bud's THC content can rise to 25 
percent.

The trade is run largely by Vietnamese gangs and outlaw biker gangs like 
the Hell's Angels. Competition between them has become increasingly 
violent, fueled by the guns that are streaming back into Canada as part of 
the illicit drug trade, Ard of the RCMP said.

As security clamps down in western Washington State, some smugglers have 
set their sights further east on the more remote border in the middle of 
the country and on border crossings in Detroit or Buffalo.

Some traffickers are even attempting to trek through the rough terrain of 
the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

And Puget Sound, honeycombed with islands and winding inlets and coves, is 
another popular route, where smugglers sometimes zip back across the border 
into Canadian water and wave at their American pursuers.

"It's a smugglers paradise," said Mike Butz, officer in charge of the Coast 
Guard cutter Wahoo, which patrols the area.

Other traffickers have grown even more creative. A large stash of B.C. Bud 
was found recently in the cage of a large black bear, allegedly being 
transported to Hollywood for a movie.

The Canadian haul still pales in comparison to the tonnage that is flowing 
over from Mexico and other points south. In fiscal year 2002, 19,405 
pounds, were seized on the northern border compared to 1.2 million pounds 
on the southwest border, Customs figures show.

But Customs agents along the northern border said that doesn't take into 
account the value of the crop. Canadian pot can be six to 20 times more 
expensive than the Mexican variety, according to the DEA.

U.S. and Canadian officials are working cooperatively to go after the 
ringleaders.

The problem: the penalties are tougher in the U.S. and most of the kingpins 
are in Canada. John McKay, U.S. Attorney in Seattle, said they are working 
on better extradition procedures and better timing of arrests.

"There's a clear understanding that in some of these cases it's a lot 
better to let them get arrested in the United States," McKay said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom