Dear Pen-Lers: One of the unacknowledeg benefits of NAFTA? Note: "...revenues estimated at anywhere from $400 million to more than $3 billion." Canada Exports Potent Pot to US By David Crary Associated Press Writer Friday, April 17, 1998; 1:44 p.m. EDT TORONTO (AP) -- In the past, Canada's high-profile exports to the United States featured hockey players and comedians. Now there's a cash crop on the list -- homegrown marijuana that ranks among the priciest and most potent in the world. The pot is so coveted on the West Coast that it sometimes trades pound-for-pound for cocaine, officials say. Stepped-up searches for it have led to vexing backups at some border crossings. Although the United States' border with Mexico remains its No. 1 smuggling zone, U.S. customs agents are devoting increasing attention to the northern border, particularly in Washington state. In the past year, the Customs Service has nearly doubled its enforcement effort there because of a surge of marijuana smuggled in from British Columbia. ``The price of B.C. marijuana has become very high,'' said Gene Kervan, customs director at the busy border crossing at Blaine, Wash. ``It's the drug of choice in many locations.'' Much of the prized pot is grown indoors by the increasingly popular hydroponic method -- using bright artificial light and nutrient-laced water, but no soil. Kervan said the product can earn as much as $6,000 a pound in parts of California -- 10 times the typical price for marijuana from Mexico. Kervan's officers have been searching more and more vehicles coming south from the Vancouver area, and uncovering more and more pot -- a change that has sometimes resulted in two-hour backups for motorists trying to enter the United States. The border crackdown in Washington has pushed some traffickers east into Idaho. Customs officers there conducted a two-week operation in March that resulted in eight drug arrests -- about the number usually made in a year. Farther east, police say hydroponic marijuana-growing is on the upswing in Ontario, some of it apparently destined for export to upstate New York. ``You don't hear of boatloads or airplane shipments of weed coming into the country,'' said Bryan Baxter, a drug-squad detective in Hamilton, Ontario. ``Pot is being exported from Canada -- particularly B.C. and Ontario -- instead of being imported.'' Marijuana is believed to rank now as British Columbia's most lucrative agricultural product -- with illegal revenues estimated at anywhere from $400 million to more than $3 billion. Some of the growing operations are elaborate. Officers on Vancouver Island last week seized 2,400 marijuana plants from an indoor pot farm and arrested a couple who were covertly diverting electricity to power 62 1,000-watt lights. Several thousand British Columbians are believed to be growing pot commercially. Smugglers range from amateurs to professional, well-equipped couriers recruited by Asian-linked crime gangs in Vancouver. Kervan said there is no typical pot smuggler. ``That's the toughest part for us,'' he said, recounting one border bust involving a husband and wife carrying 17 pounds of marijuana along with their two young children. That same day, a couple in their 70s was arrested for carrying 24 pounds of marijuana in their truck. ``They looked like a normal grandma and grandpa coming down to go shopping,'' he said. Mike Lovejoy, director of anti-smuggling efforts at the Customs Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., said border drug seizures in Washington state more than tripled from 1996 to 1997 -- and the amount seized this year already has surpassed the 1997 total of 1,486 pounds. But Kervan says his officers are lucky if they are intercepting even 10 percent of the marijuana coming in. ``We have to learn how to do this smarter than we're doing it now -- we can't back the traffic up to Alaska,'' he said. ``We get 5 million cars a year at Blaine. Even if 99 percent of those people are OK, that's still 50,000 bad guys coming through.'' Although experts are trying to find new technologies to make border searches quicker and more effective, the backups at Blaine are likely to get worse during the peak summer season. ``It has the potential for being really ugly,'' said Val Meredith, a federal member of Parliament who represents suburban Vancouver. © Copyright 1998 The Associated Press Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
