Pubdate: Sun, 11 Feb 2007
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Matthew Ramsey, CanWest News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

B.C. MARIJUANA EXPERTISE IN HIGH DEMAND: POLICE

VANCOUVER -- A different kind of brain drain is underway in B.C. as 
pot growers share their billions of dollars worth of skills with a 
worldwide audience.

"We think they're exporting their expertise," said Supt. Paul Nadeau, 
director of the RCMP's national drug branch.

"We've heard of it on an international scale."

Nadeau says he's in regular contact with law-enforcement counterparts 
in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and all report 
busting grow-ops with links, either direct or indirect, to organized 
crime groups operating in B.C.

Ironically, it's enhanced border security in the post 9/11 U.S. that 
is driving the information-sharing and possibly adding an unintended 
front to America's "war on drugs."

Why cross the border from Canada with a load of high-grade marijuana 
when you can find people willing and schooled in how to grow it for 
you in the U.S.? That might be the scenario playing out in a recent 
Washington state bust.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officers and police in King County took 
down a large grow-op ring three weeks ago, arresting seven people and 
seizing an estimated $5 million US of marijuana (4,991 plants) and 
more than $250,000 in cash.

"Detectives believe all those houses raided are part of a large, 
criminal organization with connections to British Columbia," said 
Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County sheriffs department.

"This is basically the 'B.C. bud' transplanted to Washington," 
Urquhart said. "This is not the first time."

Urquhart was reluctant to expand on the nature of the connections and 
the or ganization involved.

But when Nadeau was asked who in B.C. is exporting their skills, his 
answer was simple --"Everybody," he said.

"Everybody (organized crime groups) is into it (marijuana production) 
in B.C. There's a lot of money to be made."

A study released by the Fraser Institute in 2006 pegged the retail 
value of marijuana grown in B.C. at $7 billion Cdn and estimated 
there are at least 17,500 grow-ops in the province.

Julian Sher, award-winning author of The Road to Hell: How Biker 
Gangs Conquered Canada, points to an example of intelligence sharing 
in his book, where he documents how a Hells Angel acquired a recipe 
for the drug speed in a California jail, then promptly exported that 
recipe to colleagues in Australia for production.

"Technology, like drugs and money, flows very quickly in the 
organized crime world," said Sher. "It stands to reason that B.C., 
where the grow-ops are the biggest cash crop, that technology flows 
east and south."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman