Posted on 07/22/2008 10:25:59 AM PDT by gandalftb
In front of me stand 120 marijuana plants whose thick bushy leaves cover the strong stems.
John explains nonchalantly that this is just a small growing operation, or grow-ops.
Every two to three months, John harvests 8lbs, worth about $20,000.
Inspector Brian Cantera of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) believes that John's small grow-op is one of 20,000 to be found in residential houses around the province.
That figure excludes the larger grow-ops in industrial locations, not to mention the huge dope farms that are scattered around British Columbia's vast interior.
The striking aspect of BC's marijuana trade is that it has gone beyond the boundaries of traditional organised crime and entered into the middle classes.
The trade is so large that the police in BC are faced with an impossible task.
Inspector Cantera walked me around a cavernous warehouse somewhere east of Vancouver where the RCMP lock up goods confiscated from people involved in the drugs trade.
The most spectacular items are the cars, speedboats and even helicopters.
These busts net goods worth millions of dollars but it still isn't enough to dent the extraordinary profits of the drug runners.
Many Canadians believe that the widespread use of marijuana is having a devastating impact on young people in particular.
But the marijuana growers have equally passionate supporters like Michelle Rainey who has the legal right to cultivate a limited amount of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
It is the only non-addictive narcotic which helps relieve the pain inflicted by the debilitating Crohn's disease from which she suffers.
Over the past decade, Canada has been moving slowly towards a more benign regime of toleration towards marijuana.
This has placed the trade in the middle of some intense arguments between Canada (and BC in particular) on the one hand and the US.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
The RCMP admits that it's an impossible task.....
Go boating in the coastal waters of the Puget Sound and you will easily see the 10s of thousands of pleasure boats in all the marinas and the 2,400 miles of unsupervised shoreline.
Combine that with an estimated 200,000 casual marijuana smokers (5% of 4,000,000 residents).
It is an unrealistic and unreasonable law enforcement activity to try to stop it.
There is a ballot measure in Oregon to legalize and sell it at the State Liquor Stores with all the other intoxicants. OR estimates $300,000,000 tax revenue instead of millions spent criminalizing it that should be spent on other crimes.
Continued criminalization trivializes our law enforcement and creates a them-or-us attitude between our mainstream middle class and our government. Not good.
This is not to mention all the Humboldt County, CA reefer, Mexican reefer, and US homegrown reefer.
War on drugs????? You don't declare war on your own people, much less the middle class. And you don't fight any war you can't/won't win.
Medical marijuana is the law of the land. A recent clinic raid was negated, patient records returned, and now the confiscated marijuana legally has to be returned.
What are we doing to the morale of law enforcement?
I encourage everyone to be absolutely sober. Legalize it because criminalizing it causes more harm and less good (taxation).
So long a John Law is getting millions of dollars in seized goods, he feels he gets his cut and doesn't need to get "him man".
Your post is too intelligent. Expect the drug warriors to froth at the mouth.
I don’t like admitting it - because of the damage that will go with it - but the WOD with respect to marijuana is lost. A retreat to the next bulwark is needed. Legalize it and empty the prisons of people who are there only for marijuana usage or sales. It makes sense considering a large percentage of Americans don’t think its wrong.
Legalize it because the ATF revenuers are itching to break out their guns to raid more compounds.
BC Vancouver allows pot smoking, no?
So what is the crime that the Canadians are using to seize property? Smuggling?
Meanwhile we’ve gone to 0.08DWI and some want that down at 0.03BAC and for EVERY car to have a breathalyzer ignition system.
Even the founder of MADD has fought against MADD’s lobbying efforts since 1985. She even lobbies on behalf of breweries and bars.
I think you’re probably way low with that 5% figure. Maybe in the rest of the country, but in Seattle and the surrounding urban areas, I think marijuana is only second to coffee when it comes to favorite drugs.
“So long a John Law is getting millions of dollars in seized goods, he feels he gets his cut and doesn’t need to get “him man”.
Absolutely right.
We didn't know that we would win WW2 at the beginning, so we shouldn't have fought it at all? /eyes roll
I am more accpetable of lagalizing marijuana these days, but I'll still worry about the yahoos who will get behind a wheel and get me or someone in my family killed because they just smoked a few bones and had to go for a pizza or get a movie or see a concert or were out of condoms...
I agree. That is the only sure fire way of keeping those people from making a lot of money. It will be demanded and it will be supplied.
I don’t really think a WW2 analogy fits.
I would worry more about those that drink and drive.
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I’ve lost friends on the road who drank and drove, and who smoked pot and drove. No difference. They’re just as dead.
True, no matter how someone dies, they’re still dead.
Legalization would result in more trips by trucks to replenish the candy, twinkies, etc. at the local 7-11’s, not to mention customers not being able to find parking spaces.
Pelosi & Reid would pass an excessive profit tax against Hersheys, Drakes, etc. :-)
8 lbs is worth $20,000.00. Lets do the math. That’s $2500.00 per pound. Thats $156.25 per ounce. But they’ll probably round up to 160.00, and sell 1/4 of an ounce for $40.00. That is how they come to the $20,000.00 figure.
What they don’t tell you is that the grower isn’t making $20,000.00, but they imply that he is. There is a huge markup all along the supply chain. They probably sell the pounds to people who sell the ounces to the casual dealers who buy ounces and sell grams to support their own stash.
Of course, I have no idea how this really works, because I have never had any contact with or use for marijuana, and although I may have tried it a time or two, I didn’t inhale, and I never tried it again.
In looking at the bigger picture, the overall harm to society is not justified.
BTW, my parents and all of that generation that I know all felt that the US would defeat the Axis powers/Japan, from the beginning, just a matter of time.
The drug war is clearly a loser in regards to marijuana, it's just too prevalent and local.
I, too, have lost friends who drank and drove, and who smoked pot and drove. However, all the friends I knew who died smoking pot and driving WERE FREAKING DRUNK! How about your friends? Your statement implies that there were equal numbers of each. Is that the case?
You can add xanex and cocaine to that list of “lost” wars...
So the question comes then, where do you draw the line?
And if all substances are legalized (”let them OD themselves”) how do to prohibit the sale of bogus “aids” or “cancer” medications?
If you can make it and sell/use it, there is no need for an FDA that sits on some medication approvals.
Yes, it was.
In reality, everyone, at any age is smoking marijuana right now if they want to.
The money will simply stay home instead of going to Mexico, Canada, Cuba, the Bahamas.
Foreigners definately have the most to lose by legalization.
They must think we are such chumps, financing foreign economies with our drug purchasing, geez.
BTW, wouldn't we be better off to start fighting the War On Drugs in Afghanistan?
Thinking of it, there were likely more drinking than smoking, but at least 3 I can think of who were smoking.
Doctors that over-prescribe should be jailed, period. License suspension and fines don't work.
Marijuana/hemp grows naturally all over the US. Marijuana deaths from using are virtually unknown. However, marijuana importers and sellers are killing each other. Legalization would end an entire industry of lawlessness and violence.
Finally you draw the line for any substance above the benchmark of destruction from alcohol.
Real simple, if the substance kills more than booze, it's illegal.
the decline in standards for hiring police,the paramilitary attitude in government and law enforcement,the use of seizures to illegally line state coffers,the erosion of the Bill of Rights.
Its too much damage for a activity practiced by less then 2% of the US population
“BC Vancouver allows pot smoking, no? “
No, actually.
(Although, in some circles, it is considered more socially acceptable than smoking tobacco.)
I remember when BC Bud was all the rage about 5-7 years ago. Then we learned how to...... oh never mind.....
I guess time will tell.
That’s was it sells for in BC, once you get it across the border the price goes up sharply. I understand that DEA pegs the price of hydroponic BC Bud in LA as high at $5,000 a pound.
I will commend the Canadian criminals who grow, smuggle and sell the stuff for at least keeping the violence to a minimum. I understand that the Asian gangs and the Hells Angeles who control the trade have determined that there is enough money to go around and there is no need for drug wars such as our friends in Mexico are experiencing.
I’ve lost friends on the road who drank and drove, and who were perfectly sober and drug free and drove. No difference. They’re just as dead. Right?
Smoking dope certainly doesn't increase anybody's driving skills, but the impairment to motor skills and judgment isn't even in the same ballpark as alcohol. Have you ever seen anybody fall-down stoned? Or passed-out stoned? You don't belong on the road after smoking pot, but you are a far smaller threat than a sober person driving while on the phone, or eating a burrito.
That is exactly what is happening in Seattle, Portland, all over the West.
We are trivializing law enforcement.
Medical marijuana ended, de facto, the drug war on marijuana.
Nationally, classifying marijuana with heroin and cocaine is a disgrace and panders to irrational prohibitionists, nothing more.
Amen. WA law requires cell phone use to be hands free. That needs to be the law of the land and then enforced as a primary probable cause infraction just like seat belts.
This is indoor grown pot, usually more portent than outdoor grown stuff and almost always more expensive than outdoor grown crops. It's expensive and labor intensive to grow pot inside under lights so growers really focus on quality over quantity. They'll have enough lights to cover so many square feet and they make the best use of those lights possible. The resulting product is pretty darned expensive. Odds are the grower is selling it for $2,500 a pound up in Canada where so many grow indoors there's a glut in the market for indoor grown marijuana and it's a lot cheaper than in the states. All or a portion of the pot he grows may very well get smuggled over into the states, where it might sell for five grand or better a pound. Rather than going for $40 a quarter it's probably going for closer to $75 for an eighth of an ounce. Indoor stuff is expensive. I'm in the South in an area where Mexican brickweed can be had for $400 or $500 a pound, $20 or $25 a quarter ounce, but the stuff with the “brand names” like AK-47, Blueberry, White Widow, etc., the indoor grown stuff they often sell in mason jars around here, goes easily for a $100 or a $120 a quarter ounce to people with more money than sense.
“BTW, wouldn’t we be better off to start fighting the War On Drugs in Afghanistan?”
Watched a program recently on PBS where a group of Marines in Afghanistan were instructed to leave the poppy plants alone to gain the trust of the locals.
Guess the military knows best but I see your point..
Maybe we should use some of the money that’s earmarked for the WOR and the WOT, and buy up all the opium over there before the Taliban and other badguys do? That would keep the locals happy and also keep it out of the bad guys coffers.
Problem with that is if the poppy farmers sell to anyone other than the Taliban, they and their families will wind up taking a dirt nap..
The local Taliban, usually cousins, gets a percentage for guarding the fields and the collection process.
Then local buyers up sell to the labs for conversion to heroin, on and on.
The growers get so little that most can make more money growing wheat.
Then the Taliban would get no opium. Pay the farmers generously, then burn the fields. Few plans are perfect.
I wish I could find it, but I remember reading a police agencies report on how to identify a stoned driver. At one point it actually said that they were over-cautious and drove below the speed limit.
While I don’t think anyone should drive under the influence of anything, pot isn’t even in the same league as booze.
What I don’t understand is how come arguing to keep pot illegal because of the potential of traffic accidents is an acceptable, while arguing to return to alcohol prohibition because of the numerous traffic accidents caused by drunks isn’t acceptable?
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