Pubdate: Saturday, October 16, 1999
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 1999, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Forum: http://forums.theglobeandmail.com/
Page: A11
Author: TU THANH HA

TERROR GROWS IN THE CORNFIELDS 

Marijuana Dealers Threaten Quebec Farmers Into Silence As They Secretly
Plant And Harvest Their Lucrative Crop

Saturday, October 16, 1999 IN ROXTON POND, QUE. -- If you are a farmer in
southwestern Quebec these days, you might find odd things on your land.
Bear traps. Nail bombs. Razor blades. Fishhooks hanging at head level.
Hunting rifles trip-wired with fishing lines.

And you might receive odd things in your mailbox. Notes telling you to
"keep your mouth shut." Wads of dollar bills. Notes telling you what your
children wore on their way to school that day. Notes telling you that your
wooden barn would burn easily.

Quebec farmers are not a happy bunch at this time of year.

Across the flatlands of southern Quebec, tall golden rows of corn sway
gently in the autumn wind. It is harvest time and, once again, farmers are
confronted with the fact that more and more drug traffickers are poaching
on their land, using it to grow marijuana plants.

Talk privately to anyone in the farming business and they will be familiar
with the terror felt by people whose land is being taken over by drug growers.

But do many farmers speak out? "Never. These people are too isolated," said
Bernard Brodeur, who has an 80-hectare farm 70 kilometres southeast of
Montreal.

Mr. Brodeur, a Liberal member of the Quebec National Assembly, is one of
the few farmers willing to talk publicly. For his trouble, he now has to
call the police when cars stop at his farmhouse.

Another politician who raised the issue, Bloc Quebecois MP Yvan Loubier,
received threats against his family and is now under 24-hour RCMP protection.

On a recent day, Mr. Brodeur led a reporter to a marshy clearing at the
edge of his farm, wading by the berry bushes, lichen-covered rocks and wet
grass until he stopped before a series of water-filled holes, each the
width of dinner plates.

Drug growers had sneaked onto his land this summer and planted marijuana.
They even dug a tiny irrigation ditch.

Mr. Brodeur's teenaged children discovered the plants while trying their
new all-terrain vehicles one evening two months ago. The Brodeurs alerted
the police, but by the time they arrived the next day, the plants had been
removed.

"There were 40 plants found here, 20 on the other side, 40 over there," Mr.
Brodeur said, pointing his finger first at his land, then at two
neighbouring farms.

Mr. Brodeur's story is not unique. All over the farmland south and
southeast of the Island of Montreal, others are said to face the same
problem: marijuana growers who enter their fields to plant their illicit crop.

There is no fringe benefit, no freebies from those uninvited guests.
Marijuana may not be considered a hard drug, but the people involved in its
trade do not take kindly to business losses.

Some farmers worry that they would be blamed when the police spot the
plants and seize them. They even ask the police to leave behind their
telltale yellow tape or to post signs explaining who yanked the plants.

Sand was poured into the diesel tank of one farmer's harvester, requiring
$20,000 in repairs. Another farmer was warned that some areas of his land
had been spiked with metal rods, which would have damaged his combine had
he tried to harvest there.

"It's intimidation, plain and simple. . . . You can't take chances," said
an official at the Union des producteurs agricoles,the Quebec farmers
association.

One farmer faced the problem for three consecutive years. Once, police
seized 800 plants on his land. Contacted this week, he confirmed that he
had had problems with marijuana growers. But he would not comment further,
saying he did not want to stand out.

A few kilometres from Mr. Brodeur's farm, at St-Joachim-de-Shefford, Mayor
Gilles Beauregard spotted four hooded men coming out of a wooded area on
all-terrain vehicles last month.

The men had been on a 60-hectare lot owned by the village where the police
discovered 75 marijuana plants two years ago. Police have not been back
since, Mr. Beauregard said. "There's just not enough officers to watch
everything."

This year, the provincial police expect to seize 400,000 plants. In the
previous five years, their haul rose to 350,000 from 60,000.

Once a poor cousin to the prestigious West Coast weed, Quebec's pot is now
highly rated, earning the nicknames Quebec Gold or Quebec Golden.

"It's better bred and it's more popular," one RCMP drug investigator said.

He said Quebec cannabis has a higher amount of
delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active ingredient that makes
smokers high. In the 1970s, Quebec marijuana might have contained less than
1 per cent THC. Now, the police said, it has 5 to 7 per cent THC.

The improving quality of the drug makes it more lucrative, which is behind
the growing problem faced by Quebec farmers.

The soil south and southeast of Montreal is fertile and benefits from a
warm microclimate, thanks to the proximity of Lake Champlain. Cornfields
are a favourite target. Their rich soil is well drained and the corn rows
shield the drug plants from the wind.

More important, at ground level, the corn stalks grow to six or seven feet,
hiding the marijuana plants from prying eyes.

Planted in May, corn stalks reach shoulder height by June and are pretty
much left alone until the October harvest, giving drug traffickers plenty
of time to move in.

From the air, the plants are easy to spot, their green stalks standing out
against the golden hues of the corn. As a result, more and more pot growers
are targeting wooded, bushy areas, where aerial detection is nearly
impossible.

Mr. Loubier, the Bloc MP, has said that what the police manage to seize
represents only a third of what is being grown. Earlier this year, he
rented a helicopter and toured the farms around his riding with a
photographer. In the span of an hour, he said, he sighted 12 locations
where marijuana was growing, each spot holding 40 to 2,000 plants.

Police officers privately grumble about the lack of staffing. They note
that the RCMP are studying whether to close some of the six detachment
offices it operates in the area.

Meanwhile, the problem remains. One of Mr. Brodeur's constituents told him
that, while riding his tractor in his fields, he was confronted by eight
armed men. "Don't come back around here until after the first frost," he
was told.

"Are we going to let this become something like Sicily in the 1930s?" Mr.
Brodeur asked.

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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart