Pubdate: October 12, 1997
Source: Ottawa Sun 
Contact:  RON CORBETT  Ottawa Sun

GOING TO POT

GROWERS OF THE OTTAWA VALLEY'S NO. 1 CASH CROP HAVE PLENTY TO GIVE THANKS
ABOUT

I'm sitting in a hotel in the Valley, a nononsense kind of place, sitting
beneath what constitutes effective advertising at a good hotel in the
Valley, a sign that reads "Beat inflation  bar shots same price as beer."

Midafternoon and the place is fairly busy, sitting at a round tavern
table, the two people I'm interviewing  let's call them Ed and Frank 
dressed this day in jeans and flannel shirts, Frank with a John Deere cap
on his head.

Although he'll never put it on his tax return, or trade fertilizing tips
with a cop, Frank is indeed a farmer. A soontobeveryrich farmer.

"It's probably been the best year I can remember," he says. "A lot of my
plants were taller than I am. And bushy. We're talking high yield." Ed
laughs. High yield. Couple of different meanings for that.

"Here, have a look at one. This is a typical bud. Check out the color."

He reaches into his shirt pocket and takes out some cigarette foil. He
unwraps it and passes the foil across the table. Inside is a fourinch
long, bright purple marijuana bud.

"Look at that color. Have you ever seen purple like that before? Look how
dark it is. Man, you can get high just looking at this stuff."

Both men laugh now. Take another swig from their beer. Put the bottles
down, laugh some more, get these goofy, birdeating smiles on their faces.
Life is good.

The harvest is in, and yes, for the marijuana growers who didn't get
arrested, or have their plants seized or stolen this year, for people like
Ed and Frank, life is very good these days.

How good? Just do the math.

One mature marijuana plant, at today's yields and potency, can sell
wholesale for $1,000. Both Ed and Frank have a couple of hundred plants
each, drying in a barn not far from here. Money is why more and more people
are growing pot in the Valley, and although the story gets covered
regularly  photographers dispatched whenever the cops raid a field 
even the cops admit the whole story would surprise many people.

Fact is the Ottawa Valley  and the plants that the cops have taken this
year will do absolutely nothing to change the verdict  has earned a
national reputation for something that will never make its way onto a
tourist brochure.

It is now one of the best places in Canada to grow pot.

Const. Glenn Holland of the Kingston drug squad gets almost effusive when
he describes some of the marijuana plants he's seen this year in the Valley.

"We've seized some plants that were more than eight feet tall," says
Holland, whose jurisdiction takes in Smiths Falls and Perth. "We're talking
Christmas trees that just towered over you. All of them bushy, nothing but
buds. And the potency in these plants, it's amazing.

"Canada used to be an importer of marijuana, now we're an exporter. Right
around here, we're growing some of the best dope in the world."

Holland says the hot, dry summer this year was "great" for local marijuana
growers. He says his unit "routinely" came upon marijuana patches this
season that were worth more than $1 million. One patch held 2,500 plants.

The ingenuity shown by Valley growers is legendary, and every season there
seems to be a story that tops last year's outrageous story. This year,
Holland's favorite is the seizure they made in the middle of a swamp, on
top of a granite rock, where someone had planted hundreds of marijuana
plants in garbage bags filled with soil.

"Forget how he managed to get out there in the first place," says Holland.
"Tell me how he managed to lug water in there all summer long to water
those plants.

"We don't have the resources to stake out a place like that, but we kind of
wanted to meet that guy. We figure he must have been part mountain goat."

Other seizures have been made on Crown land, on farm wood lots ("Every farm
in Eastern Ontario has a wood lot, and it's ideal for growing marijuana")
in abandoned barns, you name it and the cops have found pot.

The OttawaCarleton drug squad has been just as active in seizing marijuana
plants this fall, and just as impressed with the quality of the crop.

"It's all big buds and you're seeing up to 100 grams of buds off some
plants," says Sgt. Keith Reardon. "It's a great cash crop if you treat it
that way, and that's why more and more people are growing it."

Back at the hotel, Ed and Frank are told the story of the guy who tried to
grow a couple of hundred marijuana plants on top of a granite rock in the
middle of a swamp. They can't stop laughing.

"Christ, a guy like that should be given a medal," says Ed.

"I can't believe the cops would actually take the plants away," says Frank.
"Where's the reward nowadays for hard work."

They clink their beer bottles together, an imaginary toast to the Mountain
Goat, may he live long and prosper. And better luck next year.

There always is a next year, of course. This is a farm story after all, a
seasonal sort of story, although it's changing, a lot of changes, which is
one of the reasons Ed and Frank have agreed to an interview.

"The stuff you've been writing about the justice system, it's so true,"
says Frank. "Why are the cops wasting their time on us? Man, they had
military helicopters looking for fields this year. Military helicopters!
Looking for pot plants!"

There is indignation in his voice. He is, he reminds me, and you'd be
surprised by his day job, a taxpayer. How can the cops waste his money like
that?

A strange argument, but then according to these growers there is more than
a little strangeness in the Valley these days. The large sums of money have
started to attract outoftown growers, many of the
twowheeledmodeoftransportation kind.

Some of the larger fields are now guarded by armed sentries. Other fields
are routinely ripped off by professional "marijuana thieves."

"It's getting nasty out there," says Frank. "And I really wonder why we do
it. You'll never stop people from growing pot in the Valley. All the cops
are doing is rewarding the wrong people, the ones with the money and the
guards and the six different plots so who cares if you lose one?

"You can never stop this. Why bother trying?" Neither Holland nor Reardon
would touch that argument with a 10foot pole.

Anyway, it's a question that should properly be asked of a federal politician.

But for what it's worth, the harvest is in across the Valley this weekend,
Thanksgiving weekend, and a lot of people have just become rich.

The game starts anew next spring.

Expect more players.