this is why i looked into this seed bank
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IN THIS ISSUE[/FONT]
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New strain of marijuana is no laughing matter[/FONT]
BC Bud is:
A) Customs' newest drug-detector dog
B) The beer that made Vancouver famous
C) Canada's answer to Spuds MacKenzie
And the answer is . . . none of the above. BC bud is high-grade Canadian marijuana, one of the most potent strains of cannabis in the world. And while that might sound like a joke or a commercial, neither the Canadian government nor the American government is laughing.
BC bud is cultivated throughout British Columbia—hence its name—and it's earning Vancouver a reputation as the Amsterdam of North America. American and Canadian law enforcement officials both say that it's Canada's number two cash crop, and probably British Columbia's number one. The BC bud industry is thriving, due largely to the drug's ability to deliver quick, high profits at low risk to the seller.
Still largely unknown in much of the United States, the most potent strains of BC bud are grown in basements and garages, typically in suburban rental homes in Vancouver. With its high yield—a single plant can produce up to 24 ounces—and relatively short cultivation period—with indoor gardening, growers don't have to worry about the vicissitudes of climate or weather—even a low-end (25 plants) grower can earn up to $150,000 a year.
So what makes this marijuana different?
Law enforcement officers in both countries contrast BC bud with old-fashioned Mexican marijuana, whose THC content, the active ingredient in cannabis, is about four percent, compared with that of BC bud, which is around 30 percent. Users consider it so exceptional that they are willing to pay cocaine prices for it: In San Diego, a dealer coming north with a pound of coke can and does make an even trade with a dealer traveling south with a pound of "bud." In fact, BC bud increases in value merely by traveling south. A buyer will pay $3,000 to $3,500 a pound in Washington state, and twice that in San Diego.
BC bud crosses the world's longest undefended border, at least the western stretch of it, by boat, car, truck, backpack. Smugglers take advantage of the forested highways, logging roads, and dirt trails between the ports of entry in Washington to avoid U.S. Customs. Or Canadian dealers off-load the stuff from their boats to fishing and pleasure vessels of American registry, which need not clear Customs after a day on the water.
Canadian police readily acknowledge that their country's tolerant attitudes toward marijuana—"too many of our lawmakers, judges, and professors just don't think of it as a hard drug," says one—have contributed to Vancouver's image as a drug haven for hippies, but more important, these attitudes have allowed the BC bud trade to flourish with what appears to be near impunity. And although it is true that official Canadian attitudes about marijuana are more lax than Uncle Sam's, it is also true that U.S. Customs enjoys the complete cooperation of law enforcement north of the border. In fact, IBET, a new task force aimed just at coping with the bud problem, wouldn't exist without that cooperation.
Fighting back
IBET, whose initials stand for Integrated Border Enforcement Team, consists of agents from the Customs Service, the Border Patrol, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Armed with weapons, scopes, night goggles, and audio equipment (as are the smugglers), IBET patrols the highways between the ports of entry to interrupt/intercept the bud trade.
IBET is only a year and a half old; it grew from Customs agents and inspectors to the multi-agency project it is today. In fact, one measure of IBET's success, is that smugglers are conducting their trade by sea: "IBET forced them out to the water because we ran 'em off between the ports [of entry]," says Special Agent John Hollstein, who is the Operational Analysis Staff supervisor as well as the Blaine Enforcement Coordinator. He adds that Blaine Customs seized 1,990 pounds of BC bud in fiscal year 1999: "That may not sound like a lot compared to the southern border, and pound for pound, it might not be. But this stuff is so much stronger and is worth so much more money than [Central/South American] marijuana."
No laughing matter
Law enforcement on both sides of the border sound an identical alarm about bud's bottom line: where's all that money going? They acknowledge that even for those who hold lax attitudes about marijuana, even when their own governments fail to see the immediate dangers of this particular drug, even when the very subject sounds like fodder for a stand-up comedian, when an illegal substance can generate that kind of revenue, organized crime must be involved.
Already, the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and Asian gangs in Canada are controlling its cultivation and distribution. Canadian growers are having to cope with increasingly violent assaults on their crops, not from law enforcement, but because of growing numbers of home-invasion robberies. Canadian authorities are not yet sure how serious that problem has become, because BC bud cultivators don't, obviously, report these thefts to the police. Further, does the profit potential from this illegal substance mean that drug cartels of the South American variety could take hold on the northern border? Do we want to find out?
Some late-night comics increase their revenues with jokes about marijuana, which for some unknown reason strike some audiences as funnier than cocaine or heroin jokes. Maybe they should add the amusing anecdotes about drug violence and crime that inevitably follow the kind of money that illegal drugs generate. As for Customs, however, we don't think it's any laughing matter.