Pubdate: Wed, 10 May 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post Foreign Service

HIGH TIMES FOR CANADA'S COTTAGE INDUSTRY

WEST VANCOUVER, B.C. - Jean Simpson was out weeding her perennial beds on a 
brilliant spring afternoon last month when two vans pulled up in front of 
her house, disgorging a squad of police officers in flak jackets who began 
marching double time down Kenwood Street. After knocking on the front door 
four houses away, they drew their revolvers, smashed in the front door of 
the million-dollar mansion and emerged minutes later with their quarry: 78 
potted plants.

"I suppose this is not exactly what you'd expect in what's supposed to be 
the richest and safest community in Canada," said Simpson, a real estate 
agent. But these days, it's hardly an unusual occurrence. With so many 
houses put up for rent by absentee owners, Simpson's exclusive neighborhood 
has become a favored location for British Columbia's fastest growing 
industry: the illegal cultivation of some of the world's most sought-after 
marijuana.

This is nothing like your father's hash. After years of selective breeding 
and cutting-edge cultivation techniques, experts say "B.C. Bud" has three 
to five times the potency, or THC levels, of marijuana grown outdoors in 
Mexico or the Caribbean. And from its benign roots as a backyard avocation 
of aging hippies, the marijuana trade has grown into a sophisticated, 
multibillion-dollar industry that rivals forestry and tourism in its 
economic impact and is largely controlled by Vietnamese crime gangs and the 
Hell's Angels.

With most of the marijuana destined for U.S. markets, American officials 
have been pressing Canada to take more aggressive steps to halt the flow of 
B.C. Bud. Raids on indoor growing houses are now daily occurrences, while 
every night, special teams of U.S. and Canadian police, using the latest 
military technology, prowl the hundreds of miles of unfenced border in 
search of "mules" carrying hockey equipment bags stuffed with marijuana.

But with Canadian courts reluctant to give serious jail time to low-level 
growers and couriers, even police concede their stepped-up enforcement has 
been ineffective in getting the testimony necessary to win convictions 
against kingpins.

"At the end of the day, the court system here doesn't offer much of a 
deterrence," said Constable John Ibbotson of the Royal Canadian Mounted 
Police, who has spent more than a decade in drug enforcement in the 
Vancouver area.

A recent study by the Vancouver Sun newspaper, in fact, found that while 
growing and transporting commercial quantities of marijuana carries 
penalties of up to seven years in prison, only one in five people convicted 
of the crimes received any jail time--and of those who did, nearly all 
could be out within 45 days. Most of the rest received fines averaging 
about $2,000, the annual revenue from one plant.

It is no surprise that British Columbia has become a center of excellence 
for the marijuana trade. Much like California, the region became a haven 
for baby boomers seeking an alternative lifestyle in the 1970s, and their 
liberal and libertarian values continue to color life on Canada's "Left 
Coast." Patrons could be seen lighting up joints in bars and coffee shops 
or even on a downtown street while certain cafes boasted dishes laced with 
"Mary Jane." And with police already overwhelmed by the growing traffic in 
cocaine and heroin, recreational marijuana use was simply not a law 
enforcement priority. Not coincidentally, a solid majority of British 
Columbian voters favored some form of legalization.

By the early 1990s, marijuana had become a cottage industry, particularly 
in rural areas where declines in the region's traditional fishing, mining 
and logging industries had left legions underemployed. Using new 1,000-watt 
metal halide light bulbs and special indoor growing techniques to produce 
ever more potent plants, local growers found a new cash crop for export. 
Local merchants began to do a brisk business in hydroponic equipment (there 
are now 29 stores listed in the Vancouver yellow pages) while specialized 
dial-a-harvest teams sprung up to cut, drug, dry and package the crop for 
sale. By the end of the decade, a pound of B.C. Bud was fetching $3,000 
across the border in Washington state and $6,000 on the streets of New York 
and Los Angeles.

According to Canadian police, it was the local chapter of Hell's 
Angels--reputed to be the richest in North America--that began to bring 
disciplined organization to the marijuana trade, integrating a network of 
independent growers with an effective distribution network in the United 
States. Beginning in 1995, however, the bikers began to be edged out by 
Vietnamese gangs that not only recruited low-cost immigrant workers to the 
trade, but were more willing to use beatings and murder to shut out 
competitors.

"The Vietnamese," said one U.S. law enforcement official, "make the Hell's 
Angels look like angels."

Just last month, for example, a 24-year-old Vietnamese immigrant named John 
Ly was beaten to death in his rented house in Burnaby, a Vancouver suburb, 
where he lived with his wife and children. Police found 140 marijuana 
plants growing in the basement. It was the fourth such gangland-style 
murder in eight weeks.

Investigators say the Vietnamese growers follow a very disciplined routine. 
Each gang has specialists--usually nice, well-spoken young couples--who 
lease houses from property managers. They never move in, but instead send a 
professional crew to hook up the necessary heating and ventilation systems. 
The crew also arranges an electrical bypass so the local power company is 
unable to detect any sudden increase in power use required by the high-watt 
bulbs. Then, a recent immigrant with little or no knowledge of the rest of 
the operation is offered the opportunity to live with his family in the 
house in return for watering the plants and keeping out of sight. A 
harvesting crew is sent in every few months to harvest the marijuana and 
prepare it for export.

Just about every sort of conveyance--from kayaks and sailboats to horses, 
snowmobiles, mountain bikes and airplanes--has been used to get the 
marijuana into the United States. At various points, the border between the 
two countries amounts to a six-foot-wide ditch with a country highway 
running parallel on either side, close enough for smugglers to toss the 
hockey bag from one moving pickup to another.

Shortly before 10 p.m. on a recent rainy and foggy night, for example, 
three Canadian members of the International Border Enforcement Team were 
camped out in a farmer's field in Chilliwack, B.C., when they spotted a 
white rented van traveling down a deserted country road only a mile from 
the border. The van stopped for about 10 seconds to discharge two men 
carrying backpacks.

"The game is afoot, Watson," whispered RCMP investigator Don Nicholson into 
the two-way radio to his American counterparts.

Twenty minutes later, a cold and soggy Bob Kohlman of the U.S. Border 
Patrol radioed from his hiding place in the woods that the two backpackers 
were waiting at the roadside 30 yards away. One was talking on a cell 
phone. Soon enough, another car, this one with Washington plates, pulled up 
and the two backpackers jumped in. Within minutes, Kohlman's colleague, Tim 
Welch, radioed that he had pulled the car over, arrested three Vietnamese 
males and confiscated 71 pounds of "that green stuff"--comfortably under 
the 100-pound threshold that would trigger federal prosecution and the 
higher sentences that go along with it.

"I'd be kidding you if I told you we stop more than 5 percent of the stuff 
that moves across this border," said Nicholson. "We do enough just to keep 
'em honest."

In recent months, however, the tide of public opinion has begun to shift 
against the marijuana trade as its impact has begun to be felt in the 
normally quiet suburban communities around Vancouver. Local fire 
departments have reported dozens of house fires caused by faulty wiring 
associated with the high-watt lamps. And police have blamed gang members 
for a rash of break-ins at homes mistakenly identified as rival growing 
operations.

Last year, British Columbia moved to bring some much-needed coordination to 
its underfunded drug enforcement effort, which is divided among dozens of 
local jurisdictions, by launching a new B.C. Organized Crime Agency (OCA) 
with sweeping new powers and some additional manpower. In March, the agency 
launched a campaign against a Vietnamese gang that was operating in 24 
locations. It arrested 31 people, seized $2 million worth of plants and put 
23 children into state custody.

But even top investigators at the agency said that, without the threat of 
long sentences or deportation, those arrested are unlikely to provide 
evidence against the higher-ups in the organization. "We could shut down 
grow houses forever and still never make a dent," said the agency's Brad 
Parker.

Unlike police, however, Canadian politicians have been reluctant to 
criticize judges and prosecutors for the light sentences meted out in 
marijuana growing cases. As the province's attorney general, Ujjal Dosanjh 
was instrumental in setting up the OCA, but as British Columbia's new 
premier, he has maintained a studied silence on the issue. And in Ottawa, 
Canada's capital where drug laws and policies are set, a senior Justice 
Ministry official disputed that drug sentences in British Columbia were 
lighter than anywhere else, including neighboring Washington state.

"The leadership here just isn't prepared to deal with it," complained one 
U.S. official. "Nobody is ringing the alarm."

Some judges, however, have begun to act on their own. Justice A.M. Stewart 
of the British Columbia Supreme Court recently sentenced a first-time 
grower to two years in jail. Declaring that it was time to "up the ante" in 
the war against organized crime gangs, Stewart effectively dared the judges 
of the appeals court to overturn his decision. "The courts must react," he 
wrote in his sentencing opinion. "There is no time to wait."
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