xxdr_zombiexx

Canada Launches Effort to Halt Marijuana for Cocaine Trade
Craig McCulloch | Voice of America

Vancouver | 13 Feb 2004, 15:55 UTC

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Illegal marijuana crops worth billions of dollars each year are flourishing in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Both Canadian and American authorities are now making large seizures of not only drugs, but also weapons, houses and boats. The illicit plant is being traded not for cash, but cocaine.
Marijuana growing in British Columbia is estimated to be worth billions of dollars a year. It is one of the province's major illegal exports. In most cases, the high-grade drug is being sent southward into the United States, exchanged directly for cocaine that has made its way through U.S. territory to the Canadian border. Canada is now the second highest source of marijuana in the United States.

While fighting the illegal trade, Canadian authorities have recently been making large seizures. During a series of raids on one day late last year, Canadian police agencies confiscated one Cessna aircraft, three boats, 22 different types of weapons including two machine guns, 3,300 marijuana plants, and replica police jackets.

Just this past week, police raided six high end homes in a Vancouver suburb and confiscated 4,000 plants. Police are planning on confiscating two of the houses if they can prove the owners were the marijuana farmers

Corporal Scott Rintoul is with the Drug Awareness Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver. He says weapons, cocaine, and other drugs started being used as currency in exchange for marijuana because of changes to banking laws.

"There were some restrictions put on by the federal government and provincial government on how much you could transfer and how much money you could change," he said. "So it became very disruptive and it was a challenge to change money. Almost overnight, they realize that they can actually just take marijuana across the border and trade that for cocaine. And that started about 1995 and that continues today. And that's sort of the big trade now is marijuana being traded for guns, for cocaine, for Methamphetamine, which then comes back into Canada."

The Organized Crime Agency in Vancouver estimates there are currently 10,000 commercial growing operations throughout the province. Each location contains an average of 400 plants that provides three or four harvests every year, which earns the grower over $1 million. On the streets of Los Angeles, the drug gets $5,000 for about one half of a kilogram and as much as $8,000 in eastern cities like New York.

Criminology professor Darryl Plecas, of the University College of the Fraser Valley near Vancouver, has studied the marijuana trade for years.

He says trading marijuana for cocaine is lowering the cash cost to bring large amounts of cocaine into Canada. This is worsening an already dangerous trade.

"If I want to purchase a huge amount of cocaine, now that I have marijuana, I don't need the same amount of money," said Darryl Plecas. "I just need to get my hands on enough marijuana, which matches what they're asking for in cocaine and away I go. So, all of sudden you in effect reduce your cost of cocaine to buy it for trafficking purposes to a very small amount. This [is a] very dangerous situation."

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency opened a Vancouver office in June of last year. The Resident Agent in Charge, Ken Peterson says the size of the marijuana trade is getting the agency's attention. He says the new trade of exchanging marijuana for cocaine has resulted in a significant increase of trafficking and as a result, arrests and seizures.

"Oh it's a major concern. The BC [British Columbia] bud - Canada and especially western Canada is a source country for the BC bud," said Mr. Peterson. "The United States gets their cocaine both from Central and South America. The free flow and the larger seizures of cocaine being seized both at the American and the Canadian side of the border has increased significantly lately as the marijuana coming south into the United States. The seizures and the intelligence has also increased significantly recently."

To help this growing battle against the marijuana and cocaine trade, the new Canadian government of Prime Minister Paul Martin will soon reintroduce legislation to deal with the marijuana issue.

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WNB

The hell? What kind of smuggler would bring coke through the US? I'm pretty sure they'd just go around it, and avoid dealing with two more boarders than they have to. Plus, coke still costs about four times as much as BC...and there isn't even close to the demand for coke in Canada as there is for BC in the US, so them being traded makes no sense.

Just another attempt to put marijuana in with hard drugs, I guess.

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GrooveGuardian

They make it sound so bad but it's actually there prohibition laws that are giving them troubles in the first place. I m sure the DEA wouldn’t look at this as troubles, only good for business. I seriously doubt there is much of a market for coke in Canada. This article is a worthless attempt to try to link BC bud with guns and coke, who the hell would want to be paid in guns anyway, and if they did wouldn’t they want to produce something worth a little more? Especially in Canada were a peaceful people in a peaceful place. There is something about this article that doesn’t add up, there claims are short sighted and don’t go into great detail. Like if they were really finding large amounts of coke and guns wouldn’t we have heard something of this earlier? One more thing before I quit rambling... Where exactly does this coke come from? The U.S? Are they trying to divert a cocaine problem on a harmless marijuana trade? It seems there so quick to judge. Some people consider the fact that B.C.’s marijuana trade is bad for reputation. How tarnished would the U.S. reputation be if they were known for huge cocaine exports?

Just a thought

xxdr_zombiexx

THIS is just bullsh*t.

Cocaine is a powder. A lot of monetary value can be fit into a small place - like a briefcase.

Even the dreaded BC Bud is space-intensive. It's bulky, especially if it is treated with care. I cant imagine the equation ever working out. I know nothing about cocaine trafficking, so I am clearly limited.

Is BC Bud really as expensive as cocaine?

Or is the Aerial spraying in Colombia SO ineffective the street price of cocaine is going down?

He also does seem to presuppose the idea that BC Bud just appears out of nowhere at little cost.

And that "second largest" marijuana supplier crap..... It is dwarfed by Mexico, and America almost surely grows a quantity greater than that brought in from the Great White Menace to the North.

So maybe it's a distant third....

Complete propaganda BS.

Again.

Hiz Highness

Call me cynical . . .

. . . but do coke dealers often trade their high priced drug/ high profit drug for marijuana? I mean, if they're just in it for the money, isn't the cocaine a better deal for them? Less to transport, higher price per gram . . . it's not making much sense to me.

It's like hearing that people are illicitly black marketing bars of copper for gold coins.

-HH

Larmer

I've always wondered who the hell it is that's paying $8 000 US for a pound.

I'm going to find them one day, and politely ask them to stop, because it's causing the rest of us all sorts of problems...

There is somewhat of a demand for coke in Canada, particularly in Ontario and other larger population centres, but not so much to match the commercial output of marijuana. I imagine that this bartering system they're so worried about is very isolated, and accounts for a virtually insignificant portion of the US/Canada marijuana trade.

The guns I do have a problem with, but that's not the fault of Canadian marijuana regulations, that's the fault of US gun manufacturers and owners. If they didn't make a hundred kabillion handguns a year, there might not be so may floating around in the blackmarket...

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kingkola

Marijuana growing in British Columbia is estimated to be worth billions of dollars a year. It is one of the province's major illegal exports. In most cases, the high-grade drug is being sent southward into the United States, exchanged directly for cocaine that has made its way through U.S. territory to the Canadian border.

If this was really going on why haven't we heard of any major cocaine busts? It's amazing, they can find tons of pot going across the borders but can't find cocaine that they say is being traded for pot. They claim it goes on but they certaintly aren't making any large coke busts.

Another thing, uncut coke would go for about $1000 a ounce. BC bud probably goes for 300-400 a ounce. So why the hell would people waste so much time trading coke for pot, the coke must be really low grade if that is going on. I know people that are getting $50 a gram for that. Back in the day i knew someone that used to get 97% and was gettin $100 for a gram and that was over 25 years ago. I really don't see how they are making money by trading. As for pot, the most people will pay for a gram is $20.

They say the pot growing generates a billion dollars a year. The governments are stupid not to legalize and grow it themselves and tax it! That's a billion dollars that can help out the economy.

If people want pot they don't have to get it from Canada, they make it sound like only the best pot comes from Canada. In the U.S theres many good growers, they can grow the same strains people grow in Canada and grow them just as good.

stranger

the real reason they are upset about bartering is that theres no cash involved . the cia uses and has used in the past drugs to fund covert ops that either congress disapproves or don't even know about. they are losing money and it's obvious. they think of us as a bunch of idiots when they are the true idiots and criminals destroying this earth.if drugs were legal the cia would go out of business. it's that simple. so grow yer own and help them go broke before they stick a bug up your arse. peace

tychristine420

Its not like I have experience, but im thinkin that some growers from BC trade alot of pot for some cocaine probably at the ratio of 1:3, and then maybe sell it at 1:4... I have no idea, but there is a demand in canada so I guess it has to come from somewhere. Maybe these guys are just trying to be badasses?

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Blitzed King

y r these ppl still tryin to make weed sound so bad? tis pathetic
n there isnt that big of a demand of coke in Canada, its coming back big time in the skools and its really easy to get a hold of

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I'm not guilty, you're the one who's guilty, the lawmakers, the polititians, the Columbian drug lords, all of you who lobby against making drugs legal, jus like you did with alcohol doing the prohibition, you're the one who's guilty. I mean c'mon lets kick the ballistics here; Ain't no uzis made in Harlem, not one of us owns a poppy field. This thing is bigger than Immortal Technique. This is big business. This is the American Way. - Tech