Pubdate: Mon, 10 May 1999 Source: Herald, The (WA) Copyright: 1999 The Daily Herald Co. Contact: http://www.heraldnet.com/ Author: Associated Press BORDER NO PROBLEM FOR CANADA POT SMUGGLERS SPOKANE - To Steve Garrett, the U.S.Canadian border north of here is a sieve through which British Columbia marijuana growers are sending their lucrative drop' south. Garrett, assistant chief of the U.S. Border Patrol's Spokane detachment, say's his force of 29 agents is too small and ill-quipped to stop the flow of pot-carrying smugglers. "We not catching much of anything up there," he said. "It's overwhelming." Garrett's agents are in charge of 350 miles of border in rugged terrain from north-central Washington's Okanogan country to Glacier National Park in western Montana. Increasingly, smugglers in hiking gear are carrying hockey bags filled with an extremely potent, expensive strain of marijuana called "BC Bud." Drug-enforcement agents believe hundreds of large growers in lower British Columbia are producing thousands of pounds of pot every month, most of it hydroponically. The Annual crop is believed to be worth at least $1 billion on the streets of the United States. The pipeline flows into Spokane, City narcotics investigators say. Here, the marijuana is loaded onto trains, planes, buses and cars for nationwide distribution. The average Spokane-area user pays $40 for an eighth of an ounce, authorities say In bigger cities, the price can reach $75 for an eighth of an ounce. There, it fetches up to $8,000 a pound, compared with about $800 a pound for the milder, more common Mexican variety. "America is a land that's starving for marijuana," said Dana Larsen, a Vancouver, British Columbia, marijuana grower and editor of Cannabis Culture magazine. "We're not going to stop bringing it in." The Border Patrol's Spokane detachment seized 3,262 pounds of pot in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, 1997, compared with 761 pounds the previous year. With increased enforcement, agents expect to confiscate more than 4,000 pounds of BC Bud this year. That amount is thought to be a fraction of the marijuana that makes it across undetected. Most of the smuggling centered on Western Washington's Blaine border stop until the Interstate 5 corridor was designated a federal "high-intensity drug-trafficking area" in 1997. Increased border raids, car searches and investigations pushed the smuggling east, said Mark Thomas, resident agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Spokane office. The extent of smuggling east of the Cascades became clear after a marijuana bust in July outside the northeastern Washington town of Metaline Falls. Three men who had been hiking into the United States were found with about 300 pounds of BC Bud packed in six hockey bags, Border Patrol intelligence agent Paul Jones said. "You don't grow that much pot in your basement," Jones said. "We realized then that we had a real problem." Northern Idaho also is affected. Two of the biggest Border Patrol busts this year were at the Porthill border crossing north of Bonners Ferry. Last month, regional Border Patrol administrators pleaded for .help in Washington, D.C., before the House subcommittee on immigration and claims. They won the support of the panel's chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, but no new agents. "So few agents cannot monitor a border thousands of miles long 24 hours every day," Smith said. "The Border Patrol knows that the drug and alien smugglers monitor their shifts and simply wait until they go off-duty." A request to expand the federal drug-trafficking enforcement zone to Eastern Washington also is under consideration. The designation would offer narcotics investigators access to federal crime databases, a small pool of federal money and potentially more agents. A decision by the Office, the, National Drug Control Policy, expected this summer. Canadian officers who enforce drug laws have their own problems. In eastern British Columbia, only five Mounties patrol 250 miles of border and interior. "Smuggling is fairly risk-free," said Larsen, the Vancouver-based' marijuana magazine editor. He said growers often buy houses in rural areas, using them solely for growing BC Bud. They set up the operation, hire someone to serve as caretaker of the crop, then sit back and collect the profits. "You can make a lot of money, if you're smart and careful," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D