VIANARCHRIS
Well-Known Member
In the shadows of these snow-capped B.C. mountains, small growers are running a billion-dollar industry
Growing
opportunities
By Nick Eagland
NELSON, B.C. — Down a short driveway nestled in the woods and pocked with potholes, a hulking cannabis-production facility sits hidden from the eyes of law enforcement and thieves.
“Phil”, a medium-to-large-scale cannabis producer, invited Postmedia to his facility in B.C.’s Kootenays region under an agreement that his identity and location would be protected.
He stands outside the building in a black T-shirt, a warm smile on his slender face.
Since the early 1970s, the southeast B.C.’s Kootenay-Rockies region has been a key player in the nation’s cannabis industry — in the shadows of snow-capped mountains, scattered along the grassy banks of glassy rivers, a billion-dollar black market quietly keeps Canadians stoned.
Some 150,000 people live here, many of them farmers who have set aside patches of land and corners of chicken coops to cultivate small crops of lush indicas and sativas — infamous “B.C. Bud” that is estimated to comprise 40 per cent of the cannabis produced in the nation.
Inside an illegal marijuana facility in the Kootenays 5:12
Police and industry insiders believe thousands of these small growers contribute to this aromatic cash crop, estimated to be worth anywhere from $2 billion to $7 billion province-wide.
Phil is kind but exceedingly cautious. He gently reminds us about the agreement to protect his identity, made for the sake of his wife and children, employees, his crop, and industry colleagues.
He says he fears “prosecution and persecution,” but wanted to speak out about concerns that impending legalization will destroy his industry.
Inside, the facility is divided into rooms for mothering and trimming, propagation, growing and budding.
Phil sells some of his crop to a trio of dispensaries. (Mark Yuen / Postmedia News)
In the trimming room, dozens of potted cannabis plants grow shoulder-high. Motorized lights slide back and forth. Fans gently hum.
In 2011, Phil began to acquire Designated Person Production Licences under Canada’s now-defunct Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) that continue to allow him to grow 294 cannabis plants. From these, he is permitted to legally supply 60 grams of dried cannabis each day to a trio of patients he met through a trade organization.
Sometimes, producers like Phil grow more than their patients will buy. They are required to destroy this excess cannabis, but don’t. It winds up in dispensaries across the country.
The federal government maintains that the only legal commercial sources for marijuana are the 35 Licenced Producers authorized by Health Canada, who operate with licenses issued by Health Canada under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR). Illegally supplied dispensaries and compassion clubs are not authorized to sell cannabis for any reason. Police have the power to shut them down.
Phil explained that he sells some of his crop to a trio of dispensaries. He wouldn’t divulge details about this arrangement, but said many producers do this because growing for sick patients —many of them on income assistance —can be a money-loser for producers as they struggle to pay down massive debts from the cost of building facilities, purchasing supplies and paying wages.
They fear such cozy arrangements will fall apart if the licenced producers seek to have their black-market competitors shuttered when legalization arrives.
Sgt. Mike Wicentowich of the RCMP’s provincial general investigation section has been involved with enforcement at hundreds of cannabis facilities in the Kootenays since 2000, when one of his first investigations was of a shootout over an outdoor grow.
“If you’re growing it illegally, we still treat it like a crime — that’s the directive,” he said. “But the legal ones, it’s actually refreshing. We’ve taken a lot of work off our plates as police so we can focus on other things, and we’re focusing on the harder drugs, which I do believe are way more destructive.”
With the cannabis industry, explained Wicentowich, police are primarily concerned about organized crime, the proximity of production facilities to schools and residential neighbourhoods, and the violence that can occur when valuable crops are ripped off by thieves.
He has worked cases of growers in the Kootenay region being assaulted, tied up, or shot at for their crops.
Downtown Nelson. (Mark Yuen / Postmedia News)
“Within the Kootenay area, specifically, the mom-and-pop growers — the small guys operating legally — were targets of violent criminals doing home invasions with weapons,” he said, noting that often such ripoffs aren’t reported.
‘There was one particular incident where two men using imitation firearms attempted to rob a medicinal grow in the Slocan Valley, and actually one of the gunmen got stabbed.”
Wicentowich said Kootenay police are also aware of the flow of cannabis from small producers to dispensaries.
But as long as a dispensary is a “well-run place that is respectable, that is open to the police, that allows inspection, that doesn’t sell to kids, that monitors and regulates,” officers won’t be in a rush to shut it down, Wicentowich said.
Within the Kootenay area, specifically, the mom-and-pop growers — the small guys operating legally — were targets of violent criminals doing home invasions with weapons
“The fact that we have these things is going to pull it out of the darkness, bring it into the light, make people feel safe, and probably reduce any kinds of violent crimes or robberies associated with marijuana trafficking.”
Detective Const. Nathaniel Holt of the Nelson Police Department said most complaints about cannabis producers come from neighbours upset about the smell.
Following any complaint, Holt’s first call is to Health Canada to confirm whether the producer has a license. If the producer has that paperwork, police aren’t legally authorized to stop them. Some flout this, but the majority do not cause problems, Holt said.
“Really, a lot of these people don’t want to be known,” he said. “They’re running a legitimate business that there is inherent risk involved in, and they don’t want to attract attention to themselves.”
Federal data shows there were 59 people charged with cannabis production in B.C. in 2015, down from 361 in 2011. By comparison, in Ontario, 271 people were charged in 2015, down from 363 in 2011. In Quebec, 683 people were charged, down from 997 in 2011.
Phil said in his five years in the industry, he has never rubbed elbows with organized criminals, whom he believes have turned to more lucrative drugs such as fentanyl and amphetamines.
“Most gangs aren’t actually interested in growing marijuana because it is very costly, it takes a long time to produce, it is risky.”
In Phil’s facility, a trio of trimmers — two women in their 40s and a man in his 20s — sit around a long table piled with clear tupperware bins labelled with the names of his proprietary strains. They wear blue nitrile gloves and use scissors — lubricated with organic olive oil — to snip leaves from pungent buds the size of hot dog buns.
Lita Moth of the Kootenay Compassion Collective. (Mark Yuen / Postmedia News)
Employees are cherished for their discretion. If a thief were to get wind of a producer’s grow cycle, it would put the crop at great risk.
Phil has three regular employees, with at least a dozen more on call for trimming days. They earn $20 to $30 an hour, based on experience.
He believes more than half of Kootenay residents are connected to the cannabis industry. They are part of a tightly knit community that meets for “shop talk” and helps members through hard times caused by insects, heat or humidity. Many depend on the cannabis industry to fund other non-cannabis business ventures and top up meagre wages.
“A lot of them are very quiet about it,” Phil said.
Michelle Mungall, the MLA for Nelson-Creston, doesn’t deny the role that cannabis plays in her riding.
“The type of industry that’s grown under the black market is very much a craft industry, so if we lose that craft industry, the big question for us is, ‘What will be the outcome on our local economy?’ Everyone predicts that it will be negative,” she said.
Growing
opportunities
By Nick Eagland
“Phil”, a medium-to-large-scale cannabis producer, invited Postmedia to his facility in B.C.’s Kootenays region under an agreement that his identity and location would be protected.
He stands outside the building in a black T-shirt, a warm smile on his slender face.
Since the early 1970s, the southeast B.C.’s Kootenay-Rockies region has been a key player in the nation’s cannabis industry — in the shadows of snow-capped mountains, scattered along the grassy banks of glassy rivers, a billion-dollar black market quietly keeps Canadians stoned.
Some 150,000 people live here, many of them farmers who have set aside patches of land and corners of chicken coops to cultivate small crops of lush indicas and sativas — infamous “B.C. Bud” that is estimated to comprise 40 per cent of the cannabis produced in the nation.
Inside an illegal marijuana facility in the Kootenays 5:12
Police and industry insiders believe thousands of these small growers contribute to this aromatic cash crop, estimated to be worth anywhere from $2 billion to $7 billion province-wide.
Phil is kind but exceedingly cautious. He gently reminds us about the agreement to protect his identity, made for the sake of his wife and children, employees, his crop, and industry colleagues.
He says he fears “prosecution and persecution,” but wanted to speak out about concerns that impending legalization will destroy his industry.
Inside, the facility is divided into rooms for mothering and trimming, propagation, growing and budding.
Phil sells some of his crop to a trio of dispensaries. (Mark Yuen / Postmedia News)
In the trimming room, dozens of potted cannabis plants grow shoulder-high. Motorized lights slide back and forth. Fans gently hum.
In 2011, Phil began to acquire Designated Person Production Licences under Canada’s now-defunct Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) that continue to allow him to grow 294 cannabis plants. From these, he is permitted to legally supply 60 grams of dried cannabis each day to a trio of patients he met through a trade organization.
Sometimes, producers like Phil grow more than their patients will buy. They are required to destroy this excess cannabis, but don’t. It winds up in dispensaries across the country.
The federal government maintains that the only legal commercial sources for marijuana are the 35 Licenced Producers authorized by Health Canada, who operate with licenses issued by Health Canada under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR). Illegally supplied dispensaries and compassion clubs are not authorized to sell cannabis for any reason. Police have the power to shut them down.
Phil explained that he sells some of his crop to a trio of dispensaries. He wouldn’t divulge details about this arrangement, but said many producers do this because growing for sick patients —many of them on income assistance —can be a money-loser for producers as they struggle to pay down massive debts from the cost of building facilities, purchasing supplies and paying wages.
They fear such cozy arrangements will fall apart if the licenced producers seek to have their black-market competitors shuttered when legalization arrives.
Sgt. Mike Wicentowich of the RCMP’s provincial general investigation section has been involved with enforcement at hundreds of cannabis facilities in the Kootenays since 2000, when one of his first investigations was of a shootout over an outdoor grow.
“If you’re growing it illegally, we still treat it like a crime — that’s the directive,” he said. “But the legal ones, it’s actually refreshing. We’ve taken a lot of work off our plates as police so we can focus on other things, and we’re focusing on the harder drugs, which I do believe are way more destructive.”
With the cannabis industry, explained Wicentowich, police are primarily concerned about organized crime, the proximity of production facilities to schools and residential neighbourhoods, and the violence that can occur when valuable crops are ripped off by thieves.
He has worked cases of growers in the Kootenay region being assaulted, tied up, or shot at for their crops.
Downtown Nelson. (Mark Yuen / Postmedia News)
“Within the Kootenay area, specifically, the mom-and-pop growers — the small guys operating legally — were targets of violent criminals doing home invasions with weapons,” he said, noting that often such ripoffs aren’t reported.
‘There was one particular incident where two men using imitation firearms attempted to rob a medicinal grow in the Slocan Valley, and actually one of the gunmen got stabbed.”
Wicentowich said Kootenay police are also aware of the flow of cannabis from small producers to dispensaries.
But as long as a dispensary is a “well-run place that is respectable, that is open to the police, that allows inspection, that doesn’t sell to kids, that monitors and regulates,” officers won’t be in a rush to shut it down, Wicentowich said.
Within the Kootenay area, specifically, the mom-and-pop growers — the small guys operating legally — were targets of violent criminals doing home invasions with weapons
“The fact that we have these things is going to pull it out of the darkness, bring it into the light, make people feel safe, and probably reduce any kinds of violent crimes or robberies associated with marijuana trafficking.”
Detective Const. Nathaniel Holt of the Nelson Police Department said most complaints about cannabis producers come from neighbours upset about the smell.
Following any complaint, Holt’s first call is to Health Canada to confirm whether the producer has a license. If the producer has that paperwork, police aren’t legally authorized to stop them. Some flout this, but the majority do not cause problems, Holt said.
“Really, a lot of these people don’t want to be known,” he said. “They’re running a legitimate business that there is inherent risk involved in, and they don’t want to attract attention to themselves.”
Federal data shows there were 59 people charged with cannabis production in B.C. in 2015, down from 361 in 2011. By comparison, in Ontario, 271 people were charged in 2015, down from 363 in 2011. In Quebec, 683 people were charged, down from 997 in 2011.
Phil said in his five years in the industry, he has never rubbed elbows with organized criminals, whom he believes have turned to more lucrative drugs such as fentanyl and amphetamines.
“Most gangs aren’t actually interested in growing marijuana because it is very costly, it takes a long time to produce, it is risky.”
In Phil’s facility, a trio of trimmers — two women in their 40s and a man in his 20s — sit around a long table piled with clear tupperware bins labelled with the names of his proprietary strains. They wear blue nitrile gloves and use scissors — lubricated with organic olive oil — to snip leaves from pungent buds the size of hot dog buns.
Lita Moth of the Kootenay Compassion Collective. (Mark Yuen / Postmedia News)
Employees are cherished for their discretion. If a thief were to get wind of a producer’s grow cycle, it would put the crop at great risk.
Phil has three regular employees, with at least a dozen more on call for trimming days. They earn $20 to $30 an hour, based on experience.
He believes more than half of Kootenay residents are connected to the cannabis industry. They are part of a tightly knit community that meets for “shop talk” and helps members through hard times caused by insects, heat or humidity. Many depend on the cannabis industry to fund other non-cannabis business ventures and top up meagre wages.
“A lot of them are very quiet about it,” Phil said.
Michelle Mungall, the MLA for Nelson-Creston, doesn’t deny the role that cannabis plays in her riding.
“The type of industry that’s grown under the black market is very much a craft industry, so if we lose that craft industry, the big question for us is, ‘What will be the outcome on our local economy?’ Everyone predicts that it will be negative,” she said.
