Zilos

Officials say the drug, BC bud, is the focus of a violent $7 billion industry

SEATTLE - The drugs move across the Canadian border inside huge tractor-trailer rigs, pounds and pounds stashed in drums of frozen raspberries, tucked in shipments of crushed glass, wood chips and sawdust, or crammed into hollowed-out logs.

Kayakers paddle it south from British Columbia across the bays of America's northwest corner, and well-paid couriers carry up to 100 pounds at a time in makeshift backpacks, hiking eight hours over the mountainous terrain that forms part of the western border between the United States and Canada. Small planes drop it in hockey bags equipped with avalanche beacons to alert traffickers that the drugs have landed.

The contraband is called BC bud, a highly potent form of marijuana named for the Canadian province in which it is grown and which has become the center of what law enforcement officials say is an increasingly violent $7 billion cultivation and smuggling industry.

On March 3, four officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were shot to death in Alberta, British Columbia's neighboring province, as they were searching a marijuana growing operation. The killings stunned a country that has not lost that many officers at once since the 19th century.

Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the Alberta killings showed "how serious the BC bud issue is getting, how much money is involved and the lengths to which these criminals are willing to go to protect it."

This new wave of drug trafficking, with northwestern Washington state and Seattle a key transit point, is a challenge to U.S. law enforcement agents stationed along the often-invisible border between the two countries. They already are dealing with the threat of terrorism, the flow of immigrants and new human smuggling operations, being run by some of the same Canada-based criminal organizations moving the marijuana south and cash, cocaine and guns north, U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials say.

In British Columbia, a rural province in a country that has long enjoyed a low crime rate, the murder rate has soared in the past two years, Canadian officials say, because of killings linked to warring drug gangs.

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Cassius

How come everyone will either say "oh yeah man, this isn't your 60's hippie pot, this is dangerous stuff nowadays" and give a percentage but not say where you can find marijuana with that percentage, or will (like here) give a location and claim it's "potent pot" but not give a percentage?

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alteredstate

In British Columbia, a rural province in a country that has long enjoyed a low crime rate, the murder rate has soared in the past two years, Canadian officials say, because of killings linked to warring drug gangs.


Brought to you by the good people who support prohibition.

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fridgegrower

man how many times do we have to read this. they were not searching for a marijuana growing operation. they were there for stolen property and happen to stumble on a small amount of plants. The guy had a extensive police records not having to do with cannabis. Another ploy of propaganda.

king cola

Well said fridgegrower, that's exacly what i was thinkin soon as i read this story. I'm also getting sick and tired of hearing about BC BUD! A potent strain of marijuana coming in from "CANADA" Yea, like that's the only potent strain in the whole world lol. Why didn't they take the THC content from potent strains in the 60s instead of taking the tests from low grade schwagg? No wonder they make all kinds of claims today saying the pot of now is nothing likie what our parents smoked. I bet PANAMA RED or THAI was just as potent if not stronger than the bc bud. I also want to point out that just because pot comes in from BC doesn't make it BC bud. People in that town could be growing and smuggling strains like durban poison for all we know but because it's grown in BC they consider it to be BC bud. BC bud is a actual strain but c'mon, i'm sure that's not the only strain being grown and smuggled to the U.S from that town.

As for being in the U.S, people can get BC bud strain seeds or about 600 other strains and grow pot just as good. Even states like Vermont have good pot. In fact i know someone who had some pot which was grown in Canada and some pot that came from Vermont, the Vermont pot actually turned out to be a little more potent in this case.

The politicians of the U.S under estimate the people of our country too much haha. Like no one in the U.S grows pot or grows it good. They make it sound like you have to be in Canada to grow very potent marijuana lol. It seems like they blame Canada for us having potent pot, personaly i could careless if it comes in from Canada because theres some people in every state in our country capable of growing pot just as good.

Drug gangs wouldn't be involved in smuggling ILLEGAL marijuana if it was "LEGAL" because that would end "PROHIBITION" ending "CORRUPTION", "VIOLENCE" and "CRIME!"

Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the Alberta killings showed "how serious the BC bud issue is getting, how much money is involved and the lengths to which these criminals are willing to go to protect it."

Special agent maybe, but certaintly not the smartest! Again, the guy grew marijuana but that's not why the cops were there in the first place, what also pisses me off is the tv show "America's Most Wanted" gave the same bullsh*t story about how the cops were killed staking out a marijuana grow! I said this already but as for this guy, how do they know the plants he was growing were BC BUD? Did he have little lables all over the place saying "BC BUD?" That's right, anytime someone grows a marijuana plant in the town of BC, no matter what strain, it makes it BC BUD?

If anyone grows in BC, wheather it's durban poison or blueberry, according to these stupid agents, it's super weed BC BUD but only if grown in Canada, otherwise if it's grown here in the U.S, it's considered regular marijuana These politicians/drug czars get dumber everyday!

413

all the "BC Bud" they want.
I'll just sit back an' grow my own Jack Herer in the little 3-square-foot garden, and not have to mess with guns, gangs, or governments.
And at a lower cost than an ounce of "BC Bud" for the whole year.
Hey I'm unarmed, I'm a productive member of society, I'm not assocaited with any gangs, no felonies, and no special reasons to be snooping in my financial files.
Maybe I should become a dual status citizen, so I can enjoy the benefits of both countries.
and no the focus is trying to smoke enough to forget about the abuses of the media and both governements that continue to be perpetrated on otherwise laws abiding citizens.

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"Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use."