Pubdate: Sun, 13 Nov 2005
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Christine Sismondo
Note: Christine Sismondo lectures at York University's division of 
humanities. Her book Mondo Cocktail: A Shaken and Stirred History 
(McArthur & Co.) has just been released.

CANADA: ONE BIG GROW-OP

Bud Inc.: Inside Canada's Marijuana Industry by Ian Mulgrew Random 
House Canada 287 pages, $35

There are occasions you realize everybody in your community agrees on 
almost everything.

Sometimes this can be terrifying, but most times there's a certain 
comfort to be taken when most everyone agrees that certain things - 
say gay marriage, access to abortion and the legalization of 
marijuana - are all desirables.

So it was a surprise when talk of drugs became serious at all last 
year, after one of our favourite local distributors got arrested for 
trafficking. We'll call him Corona Dave (even though he occasionally 
drank Guinness or even Jagermeister). Let's just say he had an 
additional problem: He happened to be in the country ever so slightly 
illegally.

For Dave, his arrest (we won't go into specifics here but suffice to 
say it belonged in the province of slapstick and involved Corona, 
Guinness and Jagermeister) would inevitably lead to deportation. Weed 
became the fodder for more serious discussion than usual.

Seeing as just about everybody will admit to having inhaled at some 
point in their lives, why should our friend be penalized with 
property seizure, jail, then house arrest, and finally being forced 
to leave his country? Especially when, in so many people's eyes, 
Corona Dave was practically providing a social service.

I had spoken with him about the risks of his profession before. He 
wasn't worried. Police were after guys with harder stuff. Further, 
some of his trade was supposedly in medical marijuana and he thought 
that would be a mitigating factor in any arrest. Besides, we were on 
the verge of legalization (or at least decriminalization), weren't we?

Corona Dave wasn't the only one lulled into a false sense of 
security, it seems. Vancouver newspaperman Ian Mulgrew, in his new 
book, Bud Inc.: Inside Canada's Marijuana Industry, chronicles the 
legal battles of several dope crusaders who flaunted their disregard 
for prohibition and are paying for it. Most of them are denizens of 
another enclave not unlike the Annex, British Columbia.

The most famous case at present is Marc Emery, a.k.a. the Prince of 
Pot. Emery owns a seed company that, until recently, openly dealt in 
what is estimated to be millions of dollars annually worth of 
marijuana seeds both out of his Vancouver store and through a 
mail-order enterprise facilitated by the Internet. American Drug 
Enforcement Agency officials took exception to Emery's blatant 
practice of sending seeds south of the border by way of the post and, 
requesting that the RCMP act on their behalf, had him arrested this 
summer, along with partners Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams.

Emery et al are waiting to see if extradition treaties are upheld. If 
they're turned over to the American authorities, they could face time 
in prison. For horticulture.

But long before Emery's arrest, Mulgrew was interviewing him for his 
extraordinarily well-researched book. Emery is candid about his 
business and goals - "Overgrow the Government" is his motto - and he 
claims to give away most of his money to organizations with a view to 
political reform, even though he imagines prohibition's end would put 
him out of business.

Emery is not the only major player to give Mulgrew the straight dope 
(forgive me, please). One of the most amazing things about this book 
is the author's access to this semi-underground industry. A 
self-described long-time "consumer" himself, Mulgrew has 
on-the-record interviews with defence lawyers who specialize in this 
kind of business; small and big-time growers; specialist fertilizer 
manufacturers; legalization activists and, of course, distributors, 
including Don Briere - who, in 2004, opened the Da Kine Cafe in 
"Vansterdam." Da Kine sold "medical marijuana" to anybody who signed 
a form complaining about just about any ailment.

It lasted four months. The thin facade that Da Kine was a "compassion 
club" - a centre that distributes medical marijuana to the terminally 
or chronically ill - was destroyed by some crack detective work. As 
Mulgrew notes, "one undercover police officer bought marijuana for 
her testicular cancer, another for his premenstrual cramps."

Just about the only major players who aren't on record in Bud Inc. 
are the Hell's Angels. Widely rumoured to control much of the trade 
in Quebec and Ontario, the gangs who control the seedier side of drug 
trafficking are obviously the primary reason anybody concerns 
themselves with the enforcing of marijuana laws at all. However, as 
is painfully obvious to any rational, even casual observer, the 
elimination of prohibition would eliminate (by definition, even) the 
criminal element.

This point is a major part of Mulgrew's argument for ending marijuana 
prohibition. He suggests it's unfortunate that people who grow plants 
think they require pit bulls or guns (or both) to protect their 
garden. Prohibition breeds criminal behaviour, in pretty much exactly 
the same way it did in the days of Al Capone.

Another element of Mulgrew's legalization stance is the ubiquitous 
nature of the drug. I think we all had an idea that the B.C. economy 
would collapse into itself like a black hole if the world 
collectively and simultaneously gave up using marijuana, but the 
picture painted in Bud Inc. is staggering. Mulgrew cites a banker's 
estimate that half of Canadians are in some way exchanging money over 
marijuana (mostly as consumers, obviously).

But still, half. Marijuana is B.C.'s major export, accounting for 
roughly 5 per cent of the province's economy. Forbes magazine reports 
that marijuana is now Canada's most valuable agricultural product. 
And Paul Martin is still debating lumber tariffs with W?

Volume won't impress marijuana's opponents, I'm sure (not that I've 
ever met any). Criminalizing (and pathologizing) normal social 
behaviour is a life's work for many moral reformers (I have met some 
of those). Other aspects of Mulgrew's argument, such as the drug's 
usefulness in making chemotherapy more bearable, will perhaps be more 
compelling to the moralists.

Thankfully, the book isn't a polemic. That would be boring. Bud Inc. 
reads much like some of the better magazine writing out there. It is 
a vivid and thorough depiction of a major Canadian industry and 
should lead many readers to the conclusion that the end of 
prohibition will be good for everybody - except perhaps Marc Emery.

Mulgrew feels that a happy ending is close at hand. He argues that 
despite the drug's bad rep for being the gateway drug for every 
unmotivated slacker on his way to chip-related weight gain or smack 
(whichever you believe), the fact that the drug is empirically pretty 
harmless, combined with its nearly universal usage and medically 
proven benefits in specific circumstances, will eventually lead to 
its decriminalization.

Which is an argument we in the Annex often forget even needs to be 
made anymore - except on those rare occasions when we watch our 
friends' lives torn apart for selling a plant.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman