These articles are almost identical, and -- inasmuch as they are not factual – they represent a great success for the prohibitionist propaganda apparatus that is aimed at undermining Canadian sovereignty in subservience to DEAland narco-imperialism.
See
Canadian Press Links DEAland Military To Closing Of Vancouver’s Cannabis Café;
Narco-imperialism At Work. Canada Should Issue Its Own Declaration Of Independence.

This is not a trivial game. But neither is journalism. This is really very sad.)

October 30, 1999
From The Economist
letters@economist.com
http://www.economist.com/

CANADA GOES TO POT

BACK in the 1920s, when the United States had Prohibition, quite a few Canadians grew rich running booze over the border to intoxicate their neighbours. Now they are trying their luck with marijuana. Over the past decade, British Columbia has earned a reputation for growing the most potent marijuana in North America. The drug is said to be the province's most lucrative export crop, worth an estimated C$2 billion ($1.4 billion) a year.
See
The Economist Offers Analysis of the Caribbean Marijuana Business
– The Contradictions of Contraband?
Given British Columbia's cool soggy climate, this may seem odd: the strongest cannabis generally comes from tropical countries, such as Jamaica.

(Marijuananews note: Nonsense. The other day I had some outdoor BC Bud that was outstanding. The fact is that strong marijuana can be grown in any climate for which the strain is properly selected. Even the Dutch can grow very good marijuana outdoors in a very soggy climate, although they are more famous for their indoor agronomy.)

No longer. The sophisticated growers of British Columbia use plant genetics and "active indoor hydroponic technology," some of it computer-controlled, to achieve higher yields and potency. Whereas Jamaica's strongest ganja contains 12% tetrahydrocannabinol, the compound that produces a "high," the new stuff from British Columbia has, on average, 15-20%.
(Marijuananews note: Oh really? Just how many samples were tested to determine this average? What percent of the total crop does this represent? How is it that using the same seeds and indoor growing techniques the Dutch weed averages only around 8% according to Dutch government data?)
See
The Prohibitionists In Stockholm Reveal The Shocking Truth
About The Potency Of Dutch Marijuana

This has made BC bud America's pot of choice.
(Marijuananews note: Inasmuch as BC bud makes up only one half of one percent of the volume of seizures of Mexican marijuana, and domestic production accounts for perhaps half of the market, and Jamaica and other countries account for some portion, how could BC Bud be the "pot of choice." It is great, but it is no better than that grown in Northern California, with the same genetics and the same growing techniques.)

The incentive to export is great. A pound of pot can fetch about $6,000 in California, up to twice what it fetches in Canada.
(Marijuananews note: Actually that would be almost three times the Canadian price which is around C$3,000 or US$2,100 in Canada for the best.

One of the problems with the export market for BC Bud is that Northwest DEAland produces some of the best marijuana in the world. Their closest market is very tough competition.)

So British Columbia's cannabis farmers find ingenious ways to smuggle south most of the estimated 800 tonnes they grow each year. The United States border patrol reckons that dope-smuggling has soared tenfold in the past two years alone.
(Marijuananews note: Yes, but it is easy to get large percentage increases from very low starting points.)

Another reason for this booming export business, grumble the Canadian and American police, is the leniency of British Columbia's courts.

Plenty of people are prosecuted: the police laid 2,329 charges for growing and trafficking marijuana in 1997, and have stepped up their efforts since. But, according to the Vancouver Sun, only one in five of those convicted of growing marijuana in Vancouver over the past three years received a jail sentence. One in four served no time in jail, and paid no fine; and 58% received a fine that averaged less than C$2,700.

The average pot grower, who pockets C$150,000-250,000 per crop, treats such light fines, complains one Canadian policeman, "simply as the cost of doing business--a business licence.".
(Marijuananews note: There is absolutely no way to know what the "average pot grower" makes, but I doubt very seriously if the average is anywhere near that level. There is no data to support this number.)
Nor do locals seem much bothered. Many British Columbians smoke pot regularly, or have at least tried it. In a recent poll, no less than 63% thought possession of marijuana should be decriminalised, more than in any other Canadian province.
(Marijuananews note: Generally, Canadian prison sentences are much shorter than those in DEAland for most offenses, not just marijuana growing.)
Marijuana is still considered by many to be a relatively harmless drug grown by ageing hippies with beards and beads.
(Marijuananews note: Yes, and what has any of this to do with marijuana being "relatively harmless." Its pharmacological properties are not altered by the character of the people who grow it.)

In fact, the industry has become big, sophisticated and nasty, and is increasingly run by organised criminals.
(Marijuananews note: This is simply petty, unsophiticated and nasty pseudo-journalism by people who should know better.)

Gangs use specialised technicians to grow hundreds of cannabis plants at a time; clandestine "dial-a-harvest" teams pick the crops, and a network of brokers market the product in America--and bring back guns and cocaine. The gangs are not shy of protecting their interests; 15 people in the dope business have been killed in Canada in the past three years.
(Marijuananews note: Have all those been cannabis related? It is true that contraband markets can be violent, but the part about smuggling guns and cocaine is pure prohibitionist propaganda crap. There is no evidence that this is common.)
Trouble is spreading. Recently, a member of Parliament from Quebec, Yvan Loubier, was given 24-hour police protection after he had exposed a racket in his constituency. He claimed that gangs of pot growers were forcing local farmers to let them hide plantations in the middle of their sprawling fields of corn, sometimes by threatening the lives of their families. Mr Loubier said that, on a recent flight, he could see a dozen patches of pot not far from Montreal, each with between 40 and 2,000 plants.
See
In Quebec Marijuana Is Growing in The Cornfields – Not the Hemp Fields.
And This Is A Challenge For Both Farmers and Good Journalism.

Just as the United States was angry about Canadian whiskey-smugglers 80 years ago, it is increasingly edgy about cannabis today. In May, the State Department took the unprecedented step of considering placing Canada on its narcotics blacklist--alongside Myanmar - for not doing enough to combat the drugs trade. Nothing came of it after Canada protested.
(Marijuananews note: Nonsense! Blacklisting a country for providing less than half of one percent the marijuana supply would be absurd. We haven't blacklisted Mexico for providing 200 times as much. What DEAland wants is for Canada to persecute its marijuana users as viciously as we do.  In any case, DEAland cannot afford to blacklist Canada. The economies of the two countries are too integrated for that -- as The Economist should certainly know.)
See
Someone Floats A Rumor That DEAland Wants To Blacklist Canada;
Washington Denies Everything, But Canadian Prohibitionists Seem To Cheer,
Sort Of… 3 Articles