Marijuana industry booming in Canada

[quaoar]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0311/p01s03-woam.html

Ontario police have seen a 250 percent increase in indoor pot operations.

By Susan Bourette | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

TORONTO – On the street it's called Northern Lights, Ontario Hydro, and B.C. bud. It's one of Canada's biggest agricultural exports - a potent form of marijuana cultivated in sprawling "grow houses," worth an estimated US$4 billion to $7 billion annually. Much of it is smuggled into the US.

Once hidden in farming communities and well-heeled suburbs, grow operations - indoor nurseries with high-tech lighting and temperature controls - have been thrust into the national spotlight. Thursday Canada buried four young Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers who were killed during a bust in rural Alberta March 3.

The Alberta grow house was just one of thousands across Canada. Here in Ontario, police say indoor pot operations have risen 250 percent in the past four years. And Vancouver is home to some 7,000 "grow ops" at any time, police say.

The tragedy - the deadliest incident for Canada's national police force in 120 years - has ignited debate as Canadians begin to question whether liberal attitudes toward marijuana and lenient laws enacted over the past two decades have contributed to the drug boom.

[nookiemonster]

1. Ya know it's really just supply and demand

And BC is pretty damn good bud. :-)

[98geoduck]

2. Vancouver is my FAVORITE North American city...

And you can get a room during the summer months cheap at the University.
They basically "rent" out their dorm rooms.You can get a private room, shared kitchen and bath (among 3 others) for $25.00 a night. Excellent biking and transit system. Wonderful people.

[Maple]

3. It may be a booming industry

but it had nothing to do with the RCMP killing.

[RegexReader]

9. or a blooming industry

:smoke:

[SOS]

35. Exactly

The CS Monitor should be ashamed of this shoddy reporting.
It was NOT a cannabis bust.
The police were there to repo a pickup truck. The guy took off and in the process of searching the empty farm they happened to find 20 plants. The shooting took place the next day.

From CBC News:
Truck repossession led to Alberta RCMP tragedy
EDMONTON (CBC) — The chain of events that ended in the deaths of four RCMP officers on an Alberta farm began with efforts to repossess a pickup truck.
Suspect James Roszko had stopped payments on the truck, and the dealership financing the vehicle sent a sheriff to take it back, his sister told CBC News.
Roszko's mother, Stephanie Fifield, said her son took issue with the dealership because it was willing to fix a dented tailgate on the Ford, but not replace it. The RCMP say Roszko, 46, who was armed with a rapid-fire assault rifle, began firing at the newly arrived officers, who returned fire.
Roszko had a long list of criminal convictions, including a two and a half year prison term for sexually assaulting a boy."

http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?articleID=1863851&pageID=ab_archive

The drug warriors are falsely saying this was a pot bust. It was not.

[meganmonkey]

4. I think the black market across the border is what contributes

to the 'drug boom'.

And what nookiemonster said upthread is sooo true.

:smoke:

[leesa]

5. Good for them! A good clean healthy source of income.

[no_to_war_economy]

6. just hurry up and legalize it

then I can smile and say " But Honey, it's LEGAL "

[Chrisduhfur]

11. I agree with you.

However, I wonder what your views are on tobacco companies? I always find it strange how some people talking about how cigarettes are sooo bad and how they should be outlawed etc..., but then they go off about how marijuana should be legalized... Always confused me. Any idea why some people have such odd views?

[CHIMO]

14. Which States Have Decriminalized Marijuana Possession?

The states are Alaska, California, Colorado, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, and Oregon.

http://slate.msn.com/id/1007088/

Never mind legalization. They are only discussing decriminalizing it. Looks like the US is way ahead of Canada. Does anyone know about this?

[arcos]

21. no way... they were discussing full legalization a few months ago...

In the whole country, just like the Netherlands.

[CHIMO]

32. Some People Discuss Everything

But legalization isn't on the books for any government in Canada in the near future. Senators have the privilege of making statements without having to go to the electorate. What is presently on the horizon is decriminalization, which as previously stated is the present case in 9 US states. Nothing earthshaking here.

Bill C-17
Bill C-17 is the latest bill, introduced by the federal government, to propose decriminalizing the possession of marijuana. Justice Minister Irwin Cotler is sponsoring the bill. Bill C-17 is virtually identical to Bill C-38, but is still open for debate and revisions by the House of Commons and the Senate.

To a large extent, Bill C-17 has been proposed to relieve the judicial gridlock that has resulted from the enforcement of existing marijuana laws. In 2000, over 30,000 Canadians were charged with simple possession of marijuana. Moreover, studies have found that the law is applied inconsistently across the country. While most of those convicted of possessing marijuana do not spend time in prison, they do receive a criminal record.

Brian McAllister, the lawyer who won the January 2003 case for a young recreational marijuana user in Windsor, Ontario, comments, "I think it's …satisfying to know that this particular law has been declared invalid, particularly given how burdensome it is in terms of criminalizing the behaviour that hundreds of thousands of Canadians engage in."

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/crime/marijuana-decriminalization/history-debate.html

[arcos]

45. It is earthshaking...

The US would never do that nationwide, it would be up to individual states...

[CHIMO]

46. The Provinces Don't Have That Option

To the best of my knowledge.
As a result of the law there are many people ending up with a criminal record, which has quite an impact on society. Just think that on an ever increasing percentage that a population becomes more and more criminalized. For starters it means one can't be a professional and also can't enter another country with a criminal record.
So the only option seems for the feds to decriminalize small quantities.

So if the states that have decriminalized marijuana did not have that option, then one would expect to see more pressure on the feds to act or build larger and larger jails. Additionally in those states where it is not decriminalized how strongly is the law enforced on all classes of society?

I think it only seems earthshaking if one still sees clothes on the emperor.
So it seems it depends on your point of reference.

[arcos]

47. I have no idea, I'm not American and drug use is not illegal in my country

it is illegal to sell, grow, transport, etc, but if they catch you with a small amount of drugs they will just take it away from you (probably for the enjoyment of the cops) and let you go away.

But that's not the way the US works, so I do think whatever Canada does will influence the US.

[CHIMO]

48. Well Decriminalization

Would essentially be the same. Although growing or possession of three plants or less would result in a fine under the proposed legislation. So it really is not much different than the way you are describing it.
However, the new legislation proposes to come down much harder under any indication that it is a for profit enterprise such as growing or selling larger quantities.

[daleo]

20. The harm of prohibition is probably outweighing the harm of the drug.

I would say the same about a prohibition on tobacco, simply because of the incredible black market and consequent organized crime problem that would entail. Efforts to eliminate tobacco use by education and social change seem to be slowly working. The same can't be said about marijuana, probably because hundreds of thousands of people per year are not dying of marijuana caused cancer or heart disease.

That's why I have this view, which upon analysis isn't really odd or inconsistent. For the record, I am not a marijuana user or a tobacco user. I like a beer though.

[meganmonkey]

34. I haven't heard anyone here say that cigarettes should be outlawed

Just a lot of criticism of the lying greedy tobacco companies...

I can't imaging anyone would think marijuana should be legalized and that tobacco should be outlawed, that wouldn't make any sense at all.:shrug:

[Chrisduhfur]

43. I agree with ya on that it doesn't make much sense.

However I have heard some people scream about the evils of tobacco but rally for the legalization of marijuana. I for one believe if someone wishes to smoke weed, or cigs then that is their own choice. Not mine or anyones else's to make.

[meganmonkey]

44. Well, saying that tobacco is bad is different than saying it should

be illegal. I think tobacco is a bad drug and tobacco companies are among the worst corporate whores around (btw, I am a smoker, sorry to say), but I don't think the substance should be made illegal.

I think a lot of legal things are bad, at least for me personally, and I doubt I would ever do them, but I think that they should remain a personal choice and I think I should have the right to do them if I decided I want to (like gambling or eating McDonalds for example). Marijuana fits into the category of things that should be a personal choice, IMHO.

Welcome to DU, btw!

[Chrisduhfur]

52. Thanks for the welcome.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

55. I've never run across that

But I do know some people who will let you smoke all the marijuana you like in their homes but will not let you smoke a cigarette.

I find that a little odd.

[Sterling]

57. Not odd at all. Cig smoke is far more toxic.

Pot smoke is not as harmful.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

58. I've heard just the opposite

(Which just goes to show how politicized any sort of marijuana study ends up being)

I remember hearing once that a joint is "as harsh" (whatever that means) as roughly half a pack of smokes.

The practically non-existent incidence of cancer was explained by the fact that, though there are many pack-a-day or two-pack-a-day smokers, there aren't that many people floating around who have smoked 3 or 4 entire joints on a daily basis for the past 40-50 years.

[Chrisduhfur]

60. That makes sense.

I am curious as to what the results of be if that was common.

[iconoclastNYC]

63. Exactly.

Pot is grown and smoked as is.

Cigarettes are manipulated with amonium chemistry to sweeten the nicotine levels. The chemical additives IMHO make cigarettes even more dangerous.

Plus cig smoke settles in the air and makes everything smell aweful to someone who doesn't smoke tobacco.

[XemaSab]

39. I hate smoking

I think the best way to combat tobacco smoking is to remove government subsidies for growing and pay farmers to grow something else. It's such a big part of the economy in the Southeast that criminalizing tobacco would spark a second civil war. But I don't think it should be subsidized. Let the free market determine a fair price, and then try altering the supply side of said market to drive the price to a punitive level.

I think tobacco companies are the Great Satan, and cigarettes are disgusting, so I have no opposition to laws that ban smoking indoors, for example.

As far as marijuana goes, I don't think it's healthy to smoke a lot, but I have a lot of friends who smoke pot, and it seems to me to be just like drinking alcohol: a little is harmless and fun, but a lot can be dangerous. I think criminalizing it is silly. It just drives the price up and makes growers paranoid and stupid. If it was decriminalized many pot smokers would grow their own, and the bottom would fall out of the market. This would remove the scary criminal element from growing pot. It's a big part of the economy in some areas of the country, which may cause problems as far as decriminalizing goes, but there would probably be a niche market for specialty buds, so who knows what would happen then?

I think the war on drugs in general is very poorly thought out. When I was on vacation in Texas, I got stopped by the border patrol and the drug sniffing dogs came and sniffed my car. There's this HUGE amount of energy spent searching the borders for illegal people trying to smuggle drugs, but what would happen if we spent this energy on people trying to smuggle guns or bombs into the country? Why not bomb sniffing dogs at the border checkpoints?

Thanks for asking the question! Give our best wishes to FR!

[Chrisduhfur]

42. Thanks for asking the question! Give our best wishes to FR???

Who is FR?

[MrSlayer]

49. Pot use is very different than alcohol use. You cannot overdose on weed.

You only get as high as the weed is good. If you keep on smoking you will not get higher and higher until you pass out the way you would if you keep drinking. The level of euphoria you reach depends on the grade of the plant and even if you hooked yourself up to a smoking machine you wouldn't get any higher than the THC level allows. This is way different than the effects of alcohol. If you keep drinking you will get more and more impaired until you pass out or die of alcohol poisoning. Huge difference.

[XemaSab]

50. Yes, this is true

But I've been completely impaired before on weed. :-)

I really don't think people should be smoking pot and driving around, which seems to happen all too often.

Also, a kid in my high school died in sort of a freak accident while smoking pot, which makes me leery of people saying it's completely safe, even though it was a total freak accident. To put it in perspective, though, 4 kids from my high school drove off a cliff while drunk, so there's definitely some danger there too, as we all know.

[iconoclastNYC]

61. Discourage use but do not make it illegal.

Tobacco companies were out thier lieing for decades about what they knew about thier product: addictive, cancer causing, and aweful for your health.

Marijunana, like two legal drugs that cause great damage to our society, should be legal and heavily regulated and taxed. The taxes should go to addiction recovery.

The resulting black market activities created from Prohibition is unaccetable and prohibition does not reduce usage.

[shadowknows69]

18. never happen here n/t

[pokercat999]

25. Too many big people and big companies

making way too much money keeping the prohabition in place for it to ever be legal.

[firefox]

7. Pot is legal in Canada, there is a big scam going on

CSM should be embarrassed by crap like this, but they know how ignorant and brainwashed most people are. This article appears at CannabisNews.com at http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread20343.shtml

The Supreme Court ordered the government to develop a program to supply MMJ to those in need. To this day the government does not have anything resembling reasonable supply. To the less than 700 out of the million that claim medical use that have jumped through the hoops and over the hurdles before them, only a few have accepted the government's offer of supply at $150 an ounce for very inferior, and some unsatisfactory, MMJ.

Health Canada does not have a policy, they have an attitude and that attitude got the laws struck down on July 31, 2000. Even then the Ontario Court of Appeal gave Health Canada a year to get its act together with what is called a stay. They did not get a program running and the possession laws were dead on August 1, 2001. The cultivation laws were not appealed by the crown, but it is implied in the ruling.

It is really a story of government intransigence and media complicity keeping the illusion of prohibition alive. You can read more about it here- http://www.hempcity.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=517&start=0 It is the most amazing story I have ever followed. It is me writing the thread at HempCity and most of the reports in this thread at CommonGroundCommonSense- http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=6332&st=0

[NNN0LHI]

12. So the Canadian government wants 150 bucks for an OZ of ditch weed?

What a deal. That alone is enough to drive people to smoking Crack.

Don

[slay]

22. Money money money money

More to life. Blah blah blah. Legalize it. Yeah. :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

[AuntiBush]

8. Can you blame them? They live just above us!

Jeez! Their nervers are probably shot-to-hell, too!

[Chrisduhfur]

10. How much cash does the Canadian government get from taxing it?

I am all for legalizing it here in the US. I do not smoke it, but it could be a extra source of income, not to mention it takes power away from the large drug cartels.

[iverglas]

13. what?

Perhaps you are under the illusion that it is legal to grow and sell marijuana in Canada. It ain't.

Were it not for the sabre-rattling and threats to interfere with the flow of the cross-border trade that large parts of the Cdn economy depends on, made by representatives of the Bush administration like the US Ambassador to Canada, possession of pot would doubtless be legal here now or in the near future, but it isn't yet. And the question of how to deal with selling/growing has not been addressed; proposals are generally to decriminalize personal possession, but not selling/growing for sale.

Even if possession is decriminalized here, the existence of the huge and profitable market south of the border would mean that the grow-op industry would still thrive here and be controlled by organized crime. The product, even were it grown legally here, would have to be taken to market in the US where it is illegal, and it wouldn't be ma & pa pot farmers doing that.

Unfortunately, the recent shootings in Alberta were used by the police, and the media on their heels, to dramatize the grow-op problem; the individual in Alberta was a loon and a gun nut and a very bad guy, but his farm wasn't a grow-op. (Twenty plants does not a successful grow-op make.) There *is* a problem -- there are enormous grow-ops operated by organized crime, and they do pose a danger to the police because of the lengths that their operators go to to protect their profits. (And they are a problem for the public because they fund organized crime and the import of other drugs into Canada -- problems that will not go away if pot possession is decriminalized in Canada.) This just wasn't one of them, and it shouldn't have been exploited.

The questions that should be being asked are where the cretin in question got his guns, and why nothing had been done about them when his cache of weapons was apparently public knowledge. From what I have been able to determine, the firearm that killed the RCMP members is prohibited in Canada, and had the gun laws been enforced, they'd quite probably be alive.

[oscarmitre]

23. Legalise it

even if it did cause problems south of the 49th Parallel. If they persist in pursuing a stupid prohibition policy then bad luck for them. However as you've pointed out there would be some sort of retribution along the lines of the recent blue over BMD and BSE.

I saw the RCMP Commissioner Zacarelli on various tv news reports in Canada (I was in Toronto for a few weeks) when this happened. I was very disappointed in his response, but then he might have been too worried about arse-covering to come up with a cogent response. Callous bastard aren't I? Or am I? I know the suspect in this matter was a nutter and he might not have murdered the RCMP members simply to avoid prosecution for twenty plants (he apparently was involved in a few other things)but I smelled cockup as soon as I heard the details.

Yep and if growing dope was legal they might be alive. I was sickened by the response of politicians at the Libs policy conference as they ranted and raved about increasing penalties for growing dope -- for me they demonstrated they had either a complete inability to understand good policy or a complete lack of guts to tell the public the truth about how prohibtion of dope is only making crooks rich. I trust I don't have to describe my contempt for Steven Harper's similarly unhelpful responses?

[ausiedownunderground]

15. Pot is still illegal in Oz.But Amphetimine use is "rampant"!

Our "conservative" government is still trying to handle "Pot"!!! Children nowadays treat "Pot" like a weed!! Even the Powerful hydroponic stuff. Amphetimine's and their human-made derivitavies are the 'Drug of choice" with Oz teenagers and twentysomethings! It's a better feel, mood etc etc i've been told by my 18 year old son and his friends. I haven't tried "Ecstacy" but i have drunk a glass of "speed" and i have had "Mushies" once. I'm not a complete drug looser!And on both occassions i had a fantastic night and morning and afternoon in the case of the "mushies". But "Pills" are huge here in Oz! People can carry them real easy without police "dogs" all over them in pubs or on the street.. They just "pop" them without all the prep work and implements required for Pot usage! They last longer, than even hydro Pot, and they seem to give people a very excited but in control feeling - although i have never personally tried a "pill"!
However i have seen friends become quite "addicted" to Amphetimine's and its ugly! So i don't indulge myself except for that one time.

[Jack_DeLeon]

16. More American Jobs lost to outsourcing...

If only our country didnt have such stupid laws our farmers could be growing this stuff and making money off of it.

[oasis]

17. O Cannabis, we stand on guard for thee.

:evilgrin:

[Jamison]

19. Just how good is it?

I've never had any of that stuff imported from up there that I know of.

[oscarmitre]

24. Isn't it reviewed?

I would have thought there must be a few websites that could help out with some decent reviews - or is that prohibited as well?

[bitchkitty]

27. Oregon kicks Canada's ass -

The best growers are all right here!

[CHIMO]

33. Newsbrief: US-Canada Joint Border Drug Threat Assessment Says BC Bud Only

Newsbrief: US-Canada Joint Border Drug Threat Assessment Says BC Bud Only Two Percent of US Marijuana Imports



The assessment also gives the lie to another prohibitionist canard: the menace of super-potent Canadian marijuana (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/333/walters.shtml). While
Walters and his ilk are fond of warning that BC Bud is "not your father's marijuana" and is seven, 10, or 20 times stronger than the weed that stoned the hippies, the assessment's sober analysis failed to back them up. Ignoring "ditchweed" and "commercial-grade" (Mexican) marijuana, potency differences between US and Canadian high-quality marijuana are minor, although the Canadians can still take pride in consistently producing slightly higher THC levels. US kind bud tested by federal authorities in 2003 averaged 7.4% THC, while Canadian averaged 9.6%.

The assessment dryly notes that nonetheless "the media are reporting THC levels averaging 20% or higher. This perception is based in part on US law enforcement reporting..." But, the study found, of more than 15,000 Canadian pot samples assayed since 1989, only 81, or 0.5%, had THC levels of 20% or more. If drug czar Walters and the other prohibitionists don't believe their critics about the Canadian marijuana threat, or the lack thereof, maybe they will believe their own law enforcement agencies. But somehow we doubt it.

[CHIMO]

40. Website

Sorry. Forgot to add the website for the extract.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/360/twopercent.shtml

[XemaSab]

41. My impression is

That back in the day, people used to have to smoke a lot more of it, and the increased potency doesn't mean that people are getting mega-baked, just that people who smoke are smoking less.

[Sterling]

56. Just google types of weed or whatever.

Bushdoctor.com has a good review section. So does Emory seeds.com

You can look and and read about all the great weed you can't find in the US, lol.

[KurtNYC]

59. It varies but

pale green, skunky, great taste, nice head. Not sleepy. Pretty darned good.

[bitchkitty]

26. And of course we all know that

pot growers are violent and evil people who kill heroes like policeman and firemen. And it's all because of liberals.

God, how I hate the media. This is why we Measure 33 in Oregon failed - because we don't have enough goddamned money to fight Fox and the rest of the detestable whores. It's so utterly depressing to me, especially since I am a registered cardholdder who depends on the herb to live a normal life.

Pot does NOT make people violent, it's quite the opposite. It's a proven, effective treatment for PTSD - we have so many veterans in our group that it's obvious there should be a study on how pot HELPS calm stressed out people.

[Misunderestimator]

28. They should use this tragedy as a reason to legalize... instead

they will "question whether liberal attitudes toward marijuana and lenient laws enacted over the past two decades have contributed to the drug boom." Great.

[bobthedrummer]

29. Legalize the entire hemp industry because cannabis is a natural herb

that has been officially lied about for a generation. Canada can develop it's hemp resources too, I hope they decide to do that.

[Cooley Hurd]

30. As long as the govt continues to demonize ganja...

...then their overall antidrug message will continue to suffer from credibility problems. You can't keep telling kids the pot will fry your brain like an egg and expect them to believe it. Kids are smart enough to know the fallacies of the anti-pot argument and will tune out subsequent ads (even the credible ones about the more dangerous drugs).

[Broadslidin]

31. Canadian Marijuana Party

http://www.marijuanaparty.com/index.en.php3

42 New Members Needed.

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. There was an excellent show on MSNBC

about these grow houses in Vancouver and the RCMP's futile effort to stay on top of them. They bust several houses a day. And they don't even charge the residents, the court system is so backed up. All they can do is bust the house and destroy the plants. Then the growers just set up shop elsewhere.

I think it was called 'BC Bud'. Great show.

[bpilgrim]

37. Can We Order ONLINE

yet ;->

peace

[lovuian]

38. No wonder they are happy!!!

HA HA HA !!!

[osiristz]

51. Our neighbor to the North

God Bless Canada. They got their 'heads' on straight. What the heck, no one can compete with China in an other venue any more.

[MrModerate]

53. If you force people who grow pot to be criminals . . .

Then you'll get criminal acts.

If you legalized it -- and it would have to be in the States as well -- you take the criminal element out, you lower the cost, you probably lower the potency (to the degree that matters) because people will grow their own, you stop funding the human trafficing that's a natural outgrowth of of the smuggling trade, and you reduce a source of intense conflict between two neighbors in North America.

Personally, I'm getting to the point in my life where I view smoking pot as more of a health issue that I ever did before, but there's little doubt that it's much less dangerous than tobacco (no way to smoke 30 joints a day, f'rinstance, like I smoked a pack-and-a-half a day when I was a nicotine junkie).

[Sterling]

54. BC Bud is not Northern lights.

Not by a long shot. BC Bud is called Beasters in the US I think. It is an outdoor commercial grade. Mostly seedless but not A grade. Northern Lights is some really good shit grown in N Cali and the US NW as well as BC I am sure.
OF course I can only go on what I have heard because we all know smoking weed in the US is illegal so no one does it.

[goodboy]

62. OH Canada...I love to smoke your weed...(nm)