Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2004
Source: Halifax Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2004 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://www.herald.ns.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

TREASURE TROVE

OPPORTUNITY knocks.

This is how the federal government should view the sensational discovery of
a 60,000-square-foot marijuana factory near a major highway in Barrie, Ont.,
last week.

The plant was so big, and the plants it contained so plentiful, that Ontario
Provincial Police Superintendent Bill Crate called the grow-op in a former
Molson brewery "a little Saskatchewan."

Whether Ottawa will know how to capitalize on this opportunity is another
matter. As we all have come to realize, one branch of the government rarely
works in lockstep with another, so chances are taxpayers will end up footing
all the costs and reaping none of the benefits of this law-enforcement coup.

Bummer.

Now, hold on. We are not suggesting for a moment here that the feds spread
the loot around and give every adult Canadian who wants one a free joint -
for there probably was enough cannabis at this single location to get the
whole nation high.

What we are suggesting, however, is that the Health Department close down
its own flimsy excuse for a grow-op in Flin Flon and take over the one in
Barrie instead.

As you might recall, Ottawa has spent millions trying to grow some grass for
medicinal purposes in an abandoned mine in Manitoba. The only problem is
that the underground joint has yet to come up with a decent strain of weed.

First, the company that won the contract to produce legal pot can't make
enough of it. Second, the stuff it has rolled off the assembly line has the
potency, well, of American beer.

Last year, the reviews were less than stellar for the first batch to have
been tested on Health Canada-approved patients who smoke pot for pain
relief, to boost appetite or to alleviate nausea.

"It's totally unsuitable for human consumption," Jim Wakeford, 58, an AIDS
patient in Gibsons, B.C., told the Canadian Press at the time.

Another AIDS patient who received a 30-gram bag - for which he was charged
$150 plus taxes - was equally disgusted. "It made me nauseous because I had
to use so much of it," said Barrie Dalley of Toronto. "It was so weak in
potency that I really threw up."

Face it. This is one of those things private enterprise does better. The
sooner we get this through our heads, the better.

Here's what we propose: The government should seize the Barrie factory and
all its valuable assets as proceeds of crime under recently toughened
anti-gang legislation.

Don't dismantle the plant. Keep it running. After all, those 30,000 plants
represent an estimated annual cash crop of about $100 million. Now you can
afford to distribute as much pot as you like to those Canadians who need the
drug for medicinal purposes.

And where will we find the skilled labour to work at the plant? you ask.
Well, why not use the existing workforce?

Perhaps the justice system can see to it that the high-tech "farmers" who
were nailed in this bust be forced to live out their sentences tending to
the plants. Hey, it beats making licence plates.

Besides, it doesn't look as though it would take much to turn the ex-brewery
into a medium-security penitentiary. The place is budding with more than
1,000 industrial lights and already comes equipped with windowless
dormitories and facilities for up to 50 workers who kept the operation
buzzing day and night.

Of course, there are a thousand reasons why none of this will ever happen.
Still, isn't it discouraging to think that the law will never be as creative
as the greedy few who break it? 
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MAP posted-by: Josh