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New strain of marijuana is no laughing matter
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.
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