(Ed. note: Maclean’s has long been one of
Canada’s leading magazines.)
From Maclean’s Magazine
letters@macleans.cahttp://www.macleans.ca/
August 3, 1998
By Chris Wood
A FLOW OF POWERFUL POT
The driver and passenger who pulled up to the border crossing at Lynden, Wash., could
have been just another pair of Canadian bargain-hunters: a woman in her early 20s and her
grey-haired, fiftysomething mother, heading south for a spot of shopping at an American
mall. Crossings are normally quick at Lynden, the least-busy of four border stations south
of Vancouver.
But on this February day, U.S. customs officers were conducting a "block
blitz."
Agents directed up to 20 vehicles at a time to a parking area,
ordered drivers to open their trunks, then turned sniffer dogs loose on the cars.
Coming
upon the women’ s 1991 Dodge Shadow the dogs found what they were sniffing for: 10.8
kg of high-grade B.C. marijuana, concealed in a compartment behind the backseat.
The seizure was one small victory for American lawmen over a new wave of dope-runners
bent on smuggling the potent cannabis known as "B.C. bud" into the United
States. British Columbians may complain that a once-welcoming border
is becoming more difficult to cross.
See New
Party Line In Prohibitionist Propaganda For DEAland/Canada Border
(Disguised As Journalism In Vancouver)
and
New Party
Line In Prohibitionist Propaganda For DEAland/Canada Border
(Disguised As Journalism In Vancouver)
But American officials counter that tie-ups are inevitable as long as the southward
flow of powerful pot continues. They blame the surge on two things:
relatively lighter Canadian penalties for growing marijuana, and the high quality of
Canadian weed.
"Canada’s got phenomenal bud," says Michael Flego, the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency officer in charge of interdictions along the western portion of
Washington state’s border with Canada. "The potency far exceeds most of
what’s grown in California. This stuff will knock your socks off." American
smokers are equally admiring: in markets like San Francisco, B.C. marijuana can fetch
$6,000 (U.S.) a pound.
See
Now USA Today Is
Parroting The DEA Line That Canadian Marijuana
Is Swapped "Pound For Pound For Cocaine"
But the facts do not quite match the hype. Some evidence suggests B.C. pot is not as
strong as advertised. RCMP sources told Maclean’ s that a laboratory analysis of
cannabis seized in the lower B.C. mainland in 1995 measured an average potency of just
eight per cent THC content-the active chemical in marijuana-nowhere near the 25 per cent
that U.S. law enforcement officers claim.
(Ed. note: What good journalism! He actually checked the claims!
Perhaps they will start teaching that in journalism school, if the editors will allow it.
The narks announce the highest number in all the samples to give the impression that it is
typical. There may be small samples that range above 20% but the average is seldom above
10% for any significant quantities. The average for all US contraband samples tested
remains around 3%.)
See
Marijuana Prohibition
And Potency, Price, And Safety --
"Is Marijuana Stronger Than It Was Back In the '60s, When Everyone Thought It Was
Harmless?"
Analysis By Richard Cowan
and
Remarkably
Intelligent Article In The Toronto Star
Looks Beyond Prohibitionist Propaganda About Marijuana Potency
Nor are the differences between Canadian and U.S. penalties for cultivation and
trafficking as wide as American officials suggest.
Agent Flego concedes U.S. federal prosecutors will not proceed with cases involving
much less than 225 kg of processed pot, leaving smaller-scale prosecutions to state
attorneys where sentences are less harsh.
Meanwhile, Canadian police have stepped up raids on so-called grow-houses, where the
best quality pot is produced using hydroponic techniques.
But odds still favor the smugglers.
Despite surveillance by U.S. border patrols and a network of remote sensors, much of
the frontier south of Vancouver is barely marked let alone guarded.
Along Zero Avenue in suburban Surrey, only a ditch and the occasional white-painted
concrete pylon separate the two countries.
Flego admits that, along much of the border, "you can walk
20, 30, 40 lb. across, no problem." The big volume of smuggled marijuana became clear
earlier this year during Operation Brass Ring, a five-month drug smuggling crackdown along
both the northern and southern U.S. borders.
See
Customs
Service Press Release
Shows How Increased Enforcement of Prohibition Encourages Hard Drug Use
Inspectors at the four Vancouver-area crossing points made a handful of seizures of
cocaine, heroin and hashish, but nailed an astounding 503 kg of marijuana, worth $6.7
million.
Flego laughs at the trade imbalance. "We’ve given you everything we could
think of: heroin, LSD, methamphetamines, cocaine, " he says. "But you guys have
us beat with the pot."
See
At The Canadian
Border The Cocaine Goes North; The Marijuana Goes South, But the US Is Outraged!
Copyright ©1998 Maclean Hunter Publishing Limited
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