"Canada is exporting to us the crack of marijuana." --JOHN WALTERS, White House drug czar

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2004 Time, Inc. ^ | August 23, 2004 | Anita Hamilton

[Gorons]

Time, August 23, 2004 v164 i8 p36 This Bud's For The U.S. Canada's relaxed drug laws may be fueling a boom in marijuana exports to America. (Society/Crime) Anita Hamilton. Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2004 Time, Inc.

Byline: Anita Hamilton Reported by Ben Bergman/Blaine, Laura Blue/New York, Chris Daniels/Toronto, Deborah

It was the bus driver who noticed something suspicious. According to school officials, a driver for Blaine High School in northwestern Washington State thought something was strange about students' carrying unusually full bags to school and then never taking them back home. He alerted U.S. authorities, who boarded the bus on the morning of Feb. 20 and allegedly found 8 lbs. of marijuana, valued at $25,000, hidden inside a teenage girl's backpack. Prosecutors allege that the minor, 16, was getting paid $300 a trip to work as a drug mule for smugglers moving marijuana into the U.S. from Canada. The teen's home, in Point Roberts, Wash., borders British Columbia in an area with relatively light border patrol, which would have made it easy for her to get the drugs from Canada before getting on the bus.

Expelled from school and charged with possessing marijuana with intent to deliver, the girl has a hearing scheduled for Aug. 23 in Bellingham, Wash. Deputy prosecutor Thomas Verge has said he will probably ask for an exceptionally long sentence that would put the teen behind bars until her 21st birthday. The controversy has upset the community. "She was a wonderful young girl," says her principal, Dan Newell. "I wouldn't have ever thought that if anyone was going to haul marijuana across the border, it would be this lady."

Nor would anyone have thought that the cross-border traffic of illegal drugs would become one of the knottiest areas of disagreement between the U.S. and its northern neighbor. An estimated 880 to 2,200 tons of marijuana are grown in Canada, according to a new report from Canadian police. About 90% of the commercial crop winds up in the U.S., where its street value ranges from $5 billion to $25 billion. Although only 5% of pot in the U.S. comes from Canada, the trade is flourishing because of high demand in the U.S. and the comparatively mild punishments in Canada for growers and traffickers.

The U.S. seized more than 48,000 lbs. of marijuana along the Canadian border last year, nearly double the 26,000 lbs. it retrieved in 2002, according to a U.S. State Department report. There have been seizures all along the border, in Montana, North Dakota, Michigan, Ohio and other states. Canadian pot has cachet in the U.S. because of its reputation for being especially potent. The featured brand is BC Bud--which is grown in British Columbia and has become synonymous with the high-grade marijuana grown throughout Canada. Once in the U.S., the pot is exchanged for cash, and sometimes cocaine or guns, which are then smuggled back to Canada.

Although the actual potency of BC Bud varies from batch to batch, depending on how it's grown, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says that as much as 25% of BC Bud is made of the psychoactive drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). In contrast, the pot that the hippie generation smoked in the 1970s had only 2% THC content, and most pot consumed in the U.S. today averages about 7% THC.

White House drug czar John Walters blames BC Bud in part for the increased number of pot-related emergency room incidents, which have more than doubled, from 54,000 in 1996 to 119,000 in 2002. Those incidents range from accidents and injuries to unexpected reactions to the drug. "Canada is exporting to us the crack of marijuana," Walters told reporters in April. Others dispute Walters' claims. "Domestic American marijuana is probably a little bit better," says Richard Stratton, editor in chief of High Times, a magazine that covers marijuana issues. But the BC Bud name is so well regarded that some dealers pass off other varieties as Canadian to fetch the $3,000-to-$10,000-per-lb. price. And BC Bud seems to be everywhere. "It's hella easy to get," says "Angelo," 22, a Seattle resident who asked to be identified by a pseudonym. "You can usually go to [a convenience store] between 1:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. and ask people who you think smoke bud," he says.

On the Canadian side, the drug is even more ubiquitous. At the popular New Amsterdam Cafe in downtown Vancouver, customers openly smoke marijuana. "People come with pot. We are a business, though, so we have a $2 minimum cafe charge [for snacks and drinks]," says cafe manager Scott Heardy. Inspector David Nelmes, who is in charge of drugs for the Vancouver police department, tells TIME, "I can't remember the last time a member of the Vancouver police department arrested someone for smoking a joint. Frankly, who's got time?" If passed within the year, as seems likely, new Canadian legislation would decriminalize possession of less than 15 grams of marijuana, meaning that offenders would be slapped with only the equivalent of a traffic ticket. That approach is a far cry from the one that is taken in U.S. states like Oklahoma, where a person caught smoking dope could get up to a year in prison, although probation is more common.

Canada's attitude toward small-scale toking up has led some U.S. officials to blame the northerners for the influx of BC Bud in America. "If the perception is that it will be easier to get marijuana in Canada ... then it creates problems at the border," Paul Cellucci, U.S. ambassador to Canada, said at a Toronto Board of Trade dinner in February. Indeed, the trade has led to an increase in drive-by shootings in Canada by rival dealers, and to "grow-rips," in which competing clans break into growers' houses to steal their crops, according to Canadian police. The body of the suspected ringleader of a trafficking group was found stabbed in the neck in a ditch in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in November 2002. "It's still a dangerous drug," says James Capra, the DEA's chief of domestic operations. "People are killing each other over it."

Currently, a grower in Canada who has been convicted can expect less than two years of house arrest and a trafficker anywhere from three months to five years, served either at home or in prison, compared with the minimum punishment of five to 10 years that most convicted traffickers and growers receive in U.S. federal court. But as the violence has increased and cultivation of the crop has moved into residential areas, Canada has begun cracking down on its estimated 50,000 commercial pot growers. Over the past four years, police in Vancouver have seized $288 million worth of marijuana and $8.7 million worth of growing equipment. In Barrie, Ont., in January, police confiscated 30,000 marijuana plants, worth $23 million, inside a former Molson brewery.

One hot, muggy morning in July, a TIME reporter accompanied the Vancouver police as an officer thumped on the door of a two-story brick-and-panel house on a leafy street of manicured lawns. Inside, officers discovered a basement filled wall to wall with more than 300 glossy female cannabis bushes. That bust is pretty routine, but the BC Bud keeps flowing. In the past four years, Vancouver police have made more than 1,500 others, or about one a day.

--Reported by Ben Bergman/Blaine, Laura Blue/New York, Chris Daniels/Toronto, Deborah Jones/Vancouver and Elaine Shannon/Washington

[QUOTE:]

"Canada is exporting to us the crack of marijuana." --JOHN WALTERS, White House drug czar

Article A120683522

[robertpaulsen]

"Heroin addiction rose 50% from 1992-1999."

Yep. Usage went from .04% to .06%. Currently it's about .1%.

I believe I read that the increase is due to the fact that heroin is now so pure it may be snorted rather than injected.

Why are you bringing heroin into this thread? What's next, abortion? Gun control?

[robertpaulsen]

"Is God a "scumbag", sweetiepie?"

Are you saying that God is a drug dealer, selling recreational drugs to children? A new low, William.

"The vast majority are there for cannabis."

"Nearly 40,000 Americans are presently incarcerated in state and federal correctional facilities for marijuana violations. Of these, 28,650 marijuana offenders are state inmates, and 10,538 are federal prisoners. In all, marijuana prisoners compose 14 percent of all state and federal drug inmates."

Get your facts straight.

"Again, if cannabis were to vanish from the Schedule, and all cannabis related activities, including in foreign countries, were to cease, the DEA would effectively lose the greater part of it budget and the greatest part of it's power."

"Marijuana prohibition continues to fuel the federal drug war. Nearly one-third of all federal drug referrals were for marijuana offenses, compared to 28% for powder cocaine, 15% for crack cocaine, 15% for methamphetamine, and a surprisingly low 7% for all opiates."

They'd lose, at most, one-third. But, if marijuana were legal, how much would their role increase to prevent marijuana exports from the U.S.?

[R. Scott]

If we can drug test transportation workers coast to coast because of safety concerns why can't public school students/teachers be tested for health and safety in education/work place??

I would change the statement -
If we can drug test transportation workers coast to coast because of safety concerns why can't public school students/teachers be tested for health and safety in education/work place??
If we can drug test transportation workers coast to coast because of safety concerns why can't public officials and our elected representatives be tested for health and safety in education/work place??

[Ken H]

[Heroin] Usage went from .04% to .06%. Currently it's about .1%

IOW, it's getting worse.

Why are you bringing heroin into this thread?

I meant to ask you the same after your post #34:

Would that also increase the use of hard drugs? I would think so, especially since the gangs are now focused on nothing but.

[Ken H]

Usage went from .04% to .06%. Currently it's about .1%

Actually, the USDOJ puts the addiction rate at about 0.34%:

There were an estimated 980,000 hardcore heroin addicts in the United States in 1999, 50 percent more than the estimated 630,000 hardcore addicts in 1992.

-- www.usdoj/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm

[Ken H]

Link should be: http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm

[Free and Armed]

Ah, the "crack of marijuana". I'm no hippie, but that sounds like good stuff.

[TigersEye]

Talk about outrageous hyperbole. Whiskey is stronger than beer. Duh. Alcohol is alcohol it's just a matter of concentration. No difference in the drug itself. Same here.

Sports cars are the crack of automobiles. /braindead propaganda

[TigersEye]

Somehow every 'marijuana' thread ends up discussing heroin. Reminds me of the favorite tourist question at the Chamber of Commerce in my old Rocky Mtn. hometown. "When do the deer turn into elk?"

[William Terrell]

Are you saying that God is a drug dealer, selling recreational drugs to children? A new low, William.

Good attempt at a dodge, but no cigar. You called people in federal prison "scumbags" because they provided others with cannabis. God provided cannabis for all mankind.

So, I ask again, are you calling God a "scumbag"?

"Nearly 40,000 Americans are presently incarcerated in state and federal correctional facilities for marijuana violations. Of these, 28,650 marijuana offenders are state inmates, and 10,538 are federal prisoners. In all, marijuana prisoners compose 14 percent of all state and federal drug inmates."

Get your facts straight.

Why yes, very good. But there are 50 states, and 1 federal. That cite is 14%, combined. If you look at 5 different places on the web you find 5 different sets of numbers.

My logic is that, there being about 60% of prisoners in federal prisons for drugs, the mode and method of cannabis trafficking being in packaging larger and more easily discoverable than the small packaging of other Scheduled substances (not to mention that cannabis emits odors of burning rope and other substances don't have a obvious smell), the fact that, while a future federal inmate may be charged with possession of these other substances, a large, if not the largest, part were caught using cannabis is the initial cause. While they may be in the prison on a conviction for other offenses, they are really there for the use of cannabis.

This goes to my original position that you unSchedule cannabis, the DEA is a goner.

Also, Bureau of Justice Statistics, which I assume NORML is citing, did not count a number of populations for their estimates, like those fed prisoners in state and local jails and holding facilities and convicted but unsentenced prisoners, which, at the current level of the drug war will be large at any one time.

Statistical analyzes always use the most surface data, the cost being high for even the thinest surface skim and the cost of any kind of deeper relationship prohibitive.

I maintain that my "facts" are much closer to reality than their "facts".

They'd lose, at most, one-third. But, if marijuana were legal, how much would their role increase to prevent marijuana exports from the U.S.?

Well, on the negative side of my position, there will always be factions that have the greatest contempt for the innate wisdom of the "common man" and will express it by trying to save him from himself, by force. So, indeed, there may always be some form of DEA.

But there will always be some form of the flu, too.

My analysis of the situation is that while the DEA is concerned with cocaine, many opium derivatives, and other exotic drugs, it's public perception of power is based on cannabis.

It's bricks may be hard drugs and chemical cocktails, but cannabis is the mortar that holds the entire unwieldy mass together both legally, publicly and politically, but the bricks are tiny and the mortar courses thick.

You have to remember that whether a person deals in smoking opium or heroin, methamphedemines or PCP, he will smoke cannabis just like he will most probably drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes.

[robertpaulsen]

"I maintain that my "facts" are much closer to reality than their "facts"."

There are 77,000 in federal prison on drug charges. 10,538 of those are for marijuana. That works out to about 14%.

14% is not a "vast majority".

[William Terrell]

And I explained the reasoning that once cannabis is off the Echedule, the Dea will cease to exist as such, other than a repository for those who want to save people from themselves.

[robertpaulsen]

"... once cannabis is off the Echedule, the Dea will cease to exist as such ..."

I disagree. IF cannabis were legal, the DEA would be confined to hard drugs -- that mission would have the support of 99% of the American public, yes? It would certainly have your support, wouldn't it?

So no, theDEA would not go away. Actually, as I said before, I think it would grow -- and for a good logical reason.

[Not A Snowbird]

She was a wonderful young girl," says her principal, Dan Newell.

Wonderful young girls don't run drugs.