There must be legal sales as well.)

October 16, 1999

From The Globe and Mail
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By TU THANH HA

TERROR GROWS IN THE CORNFIELDS

Marijuana Dealers Threaten Quebec Farmers Into Silence As They Secretly Plant And Harvest Their Lucrative Crop
See
Organized Crime In The Marijuana Trade.
Why More "Law Enforcement" is Counterproductive.
An Excellent Halifax Editorial Says, "Marijuana laws encourage crime."

Saturday, October 16, 1999 IN ROXTON POND, QUE. -- If you are a farmer in southwestern Quebec these days, you might find odd things on your land. Bear traps. Nail bombs. Razor blades. Fishhooks hanging at head level. Hunting rifles trip-wired with fishing lines.

And you might receive odd things in your mailbox. Notes telling you to "keep your mouth shut." Wads of dollar bills. Notes telling you what your children wore on their way to school that day. Notes telling you that your wooden barn would burn easily.

Quebec farmers are not a happy bunch at this time of year.

Across the flatlands of southern Quebec, tall golden rows of corn sway gently in the autumn wind. It is harvest time and, once again, farmers are confronted with the fact that more and more drug traffickers are poaching on their land, using it to grow marijuana plants.

(Marijuananews note: It is interesting that hemp farmers are not reporting this problem. The reason is that growing marijuana in a hemp field would ruin the marijuana.)

Talk privately to anyone in the farming business and they will be familiar with the terror felt by people whose land is being taken over by drug growers.

But do many farmers speak out? "Never. These people are too isolated," said Bernard Brodeur, who has an 80-hectare farm 70 kilometres southeast of Montreal.

Mr. Brodeur, a Liberal member of the Quebec National Assembly, is one of the few farmers willing to talk publicly. For his trouble, he now has to call the police when cars stop at his farmhouse.

Another politician who raised the issue, Bloc Quebecois MP Yvan Loubier, received threats against his family and is now under 24-hour RCMP protection.

On a recent day, Mr. Brodeur led a reporter to a marshy clearing at the edge of his farm, wading by the berry bushes, lichen-covered rocks and wet grass until he stopped before a series of water-filled holes, each the width of dinner plates.

Drug growers had sneaked onto his land this summer and planted marijuana.

They even dug a tiny irrigation ditch.

Mr. Brodeur's teenaged children discovered the plants while trying their new all-terrain vehicles one evening two months ago. The Brodeurs alerted the police, but by the time they arrived the next day, the plants had been removed.

(Marijuananews note: Now that is very interesting. Either the growers were watching, or they were tipped off by the police. Actually, the crop would have been worthless at that stage so it is hard to understand why anyone – except the police -- would have had any interest in it.)

"There were 40 plants found here, 20 on the other side, 40 over there," Mr. Brodeur said, pointing his finger first at his land, then at two neighbouring farms.

Mr. Brodeur's story is not unique. All over the farmland south and southeast of the Island of Montreal, others are said to face the same problem: marijuana growers who enter their fields to plant their illicit crop.

There is no fringe benefit, no freebies from those uninvited guests. Marijuana may not be considered a hard drug, but the people involved in its trade do not take kindly to business losses.

Some farmers worry that they would be blamed when the police spot the plants and seize them. They even ask the police to leave behind their telltale yellow tape or to post signs explaining who yanked the plants.

Sand was poured into the diesel tank of one farmer's harvester, requiring $20,000 in repairs. Another farmer was warned that some areas of his land had been spiked with metal rods, which would have damaged his combine had he tried to harvest there.

"It's intimidation, plain and simple. . . . You can't take chances," said an official at the Union des producteurs agricoles,the Quebec farmers association.

One farmer faced the problem for three consecutive years. Once, police seized 800 plants on his land. Contacted this week, he confirmed that he had had problems with marijuana growers. But he would not comment further, saying he did not want to stand out.

A few kilometres from Mr. Brodeur's farm, at St-Joachim-de-Shefford, Mayor Gilles Beauregard spotted four hooded men coming out of a wooded area on all-terrain vehicles last month.

The men had been on a 60-hectare lot owned by the village where the police discovered 75 marijuana plants two years ago. Police have not been back since, Mr. Beauregard said. "There's just not enough officers to watch everything."

This year, the provincial police expect to seize 400,000 plants. In the previous five years, their haul rose to 350,000 from 60,000.

Once a poor cousin to the prestigious West Coast weed, Quebec's pot is now highly rated, earning the nicknames Quebec Gold or Quebec Golden.

"It's better bred and it's more popular," one RCMP drug investigator said.

He said Quebec cannabis has a higher amount of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active ingredient that makes smokers high. In the 1970s, Quebec marijuana might have contained less than 1 per cent THC. Now, the police said, it has 5 to 7 per cent THC.

Third, 5 to 7 percent THC would be a good average for indoor marijuana. Remember all those "sophisticated hydroponic" operations that are supposedly key to the "new potent pot?"
See
Article From The Calgary Sun Is So Dumb That Reading It Could Cause Brain Damage.
Prohibitionist Drivel At Its Worst.
and links

It is unfortunate that a paper of the quality of the Globe and Mail would fall for something like this, but even the great Ottawa Citizen is not immune to it.)
See
Even The Ottawa Citizen Can Fall For Prohibitionist Propaganda,
But This Is A Good Overview Of The Canadian Border Situation.
Look Out For The New Cameras!

The improving quality of the drug makes it more lucrative, which is behind the growing problem faced by Quebec farmers.

The soil south and southeast of Montreal is fertile and benefits from a warm microclimate, thanks to the proximity of Lake Champlain. Cornfields are a favourite target. Their rich soil is well drained and the corn rows shield the drug plants from the wind.

More important, at ground level, the corn stalks grow to six or seven feet, hiding the marijuana plants from prying eyes.

(Marijuananews note: Interplanting with corn has long been a favored way of hiding marijuana. That is why we must ban corn in the interest of a drug free world!)

Planted in May, corn stalks reach shoulder height by June and are pretty much left alone until the October harvest, giving drug traffickers plenty of time to move in.

From the air, the plants are easy to spot, their green stalks standing out against the golden hues of the corn. As a result, more and more pot growers are targeting wooded, bushy areas, where aerial detection is nearly impossible.

Mr. Loubier, the Bloc MP, has said that what the police manage to seize represents only a third of what is being grown.

(Marijuananews note: There is absolutely no way that they can know what percentage they are getting.)

Earlier this year, he rented a helicopter and toured the farms around his riding with a photographer. In the span of an hour, he said, he sighted 12 locations where marijuana was growing, each spot holding 40 to 2,000 plants.

Police officers privately grumble about the lack of staffing. They note that the RCMP are studying whether to close some of the six detachment offices it operates in the area.

(Marijuananews note: One more reason for ending marijuana prohibition.)

Meanwhile, the problem remains. One of Mr. Brodeur's constituents told him that, while riding his tractor in his fields, he was confronted by eight armed men. "Don't come back around here until after the first frost," he was told.

"Are we going to let this become something like Sicily in the 1930s?" Mr. Brodeur asked.

(Marijuananews note: No, just like DEAland in the 1990s. Canada must declare its independence from prohibitionism.)