T
The420Guy
Guest
If you're looking for evidence of B.C.'s booming marijuana industry, you
don't have to look far.
Flip to the "hydroponic equipment" section in your Yellow Pages and you'll
find listings that fill 2 1/2 pages. Some companies have even placed
half-page, full-colour ads, advertising multiple outlets and
seven-day-a-week "superstores."
(One, in what appears to be either a typographical error or a Freudian
slip, boasts that it offers "Export advice.")
In Toronto, there are listings for only 13 hydroponic stores.
In Vancouver there are 32.
That's twice as many listings as there were in 1997 (14) and more than a
10-fold increase since 1991, when there were only three.
Indeed, there are now twice as many listings for hydroponic stores as there
are Burger Kings (17).
Store owners contacted by The Vancouver Sun refused to comment on the
reason for their runaway success.
But, as Staff Sergeant Chuck Doucette of the RCMP's drug awareness section
puts it: "There aren't that many people growing tomatoes."
Last week, the Organized Crime Agency released details from a new
intelligence report that pegged the annual wholesale value of B.C.'s
marijuana production at $6 billion.
If true, that means marijuana has become one of the largest commodity
industries in the province, comparable in size to logging.
And given that police estimate as much as 95 per cent of our marijuana is
destined for the U.S. market, it could well be our largest U.S. export --
ahead of our top legal exports of sawmill products ($4.6 billion) and oil
and gas ($2.5 billion.)
The OCA's estimates of the number of people employed by the trade -- an
average of six per grow-op, or up to 150,000 people -- would make marijuana
one of the province's biggest employers, ahead of construction.
The size of B.C.'s marijuana trade puts us in a position likely without
precedent in North American history.
"I'm not aware of anywhere in North America where a single [illegal]
industry would be this important," said Jim Brander, a professor of
business economics at the University of B.C.
For marijuana advocates, such news is cause for celebration.
"Marijuana is the best industry any province can have," said B.C. Marijuana
party president and pot activist Marc Emery. "And people are damn lucky to
have it."
But others say the growing pot trade is cause for concern.
"I don't on the whole think it's healthy," said Mark Wexler, a professor of
business ethics at Simon Fraser University.
Criminal industries can create a whole host of problems, Wexler said,
everything from discouraging young people from pursuing higher education
(because "you don't need an MBA" to work in the lucrative pot trade) to
breeding violence (because growers can't rely on the courts to settle
business disputes.)
And as some B.C. communities, especially smaller ones, become increasingly
dependent on revenue from the marijuana trade, police may face growing
public resistance when they try to enforce the law.
"It's the kind of problems we associate with Colombia," Brander said.
Measuring the size of an illegal industry is difficult.
Detective Anne Drennan, spokeswoman for the OCA, said the agency's
estimates are based on intelligence gathered by police, including
information on the number of complaints received by police about growing
operations in the community.
The agency estimates there are 15,000 to 20,000 growing operations in the
Lower Mainland and a total of 20,000 to 25,000 across B.C.
If the OCA's estimates are correct, that means there is a growing operation
in at least one in every 46 homes -- possibly as many as one in every 35.
Emery, for one, thinks the OCA's numbers are too high. He estimates the
province's pot trade is worth about $4 billion, not $6 billion, and
estimates about 60,000 people are employed full-time in the pot trade.
But that would still make it one of the province's leading industries.
B.C.'s economy as a whole is worth about $120 billion. On the face of it,
then, the marijuana trade could make up as much as five per cent of our
economy. But that only represents the wholesale value of the marijuana
produced in the province.
And just as annual sales of lumber don't give a full picture of the size of
the forestry industry, the OCA's estimates of marijuana production don't
account for the "spin-off" economic benefits from the trade.
The tool usually used by economists to measure an industry's impact on the
economy is the "multiplier effect" -- the idea, for example, that when you
buy a new car, the person who sold you the car will feel richer and buy
some new clothes, and so on.
Measuring the multiplier effect for B.C.'s legal industries like tourism
and logging is difficult enough, said Lindsay Meredith, an economist at SFU.
Measuring it for an industry that, by definition, doesn't want to draw
attention to itself, is downright impossible.
"I have no idea what the multiplier effect for the marijuana industry would
be," Meredith said.
But he added there are a couple of reasons to believe it could be high --
perhaps as high as two or three times marijuana's wholesale value.
The first reason is that, by police estimates, the vast majority of the
marijuana produced in B.C. is for export -- "possibly as high as 95 per
cent," according to Drennan.
Money made from exports tends to go further than domestic dollars, Meredith
said.
"Ideally, what any country wants to do is produce for export to other
countries," Meredith said. "It creates a trade surplus and makes the
currency stronger."
The other reason to believe marijuana money may go far is that, because the
trade is illegal, those involved in the industry may be more likely to
spend their money than to hold on to it.
"The multiplier effect is probably augmented because it doesn't go into a
savings account," Meredith said.
However, the experience in other criminal economies -- like that of Bolivia
-- suggests the opposite can also occur.
One of the biggest problems with criminal profits is that those who make
them are less interested in investing in productive parts of the economy
than they are in hiding their ill-gotten gains.
That can result in large pools of money being essentially "parked" in
real-estate or offshore accounts.
Indeed, police say one of the things that distinguishes those in the
marijuana trade from hard drug dealers is that they tend not to spend their
money in ways that will draw attention to themselves. It is only after they
are arrested that police usually discover large quantities of money stashed
away.
"I think they've gotten smarter," said Constable Tom Clark, an RCMP drug
awareness officer in the Kootenays. "They realize if they drive around in
new cars and go on lots of trips, police are going to look at them more."
* * *
It happens every year in Nelson.
Around September or October, people come into town from the rural Slocan
Valley and lay down a lot of money for fancy dinners and drinks at the bar.
It's as if everyone got their paycheque at once. And, in a sense, they have.
"The outdoor [marijuana] crop has come in and they've gotten paid,"
explains Drew Edwards, managing editor of the Nelson Daily News.
The vast majority of B.C.'s marijuana industry is based in the Lower
Mainland (the OCA estimates anywhere from 75 to 80 per cent of the
province's growing operations are here.)
But it may be in places like Nelson, with little other industry, where the
impact of the marijuana trade is most keenly felt. And where one can most
plainly see the beginnings of an economy based on crime.
"I can't imagine another community that would be affected as dramatically as
Newshawk: Leni Moscovitch
Pubdate: Sat, 14 Jul 2001
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2001 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: sunletters@pacpress.southam.ca
Website: Vancouver Sun
Details: MapInc
Author: Chad Skelton, Vancouver Sun
don't have to look far.
Flip to the "hydroponic equipment" section in your Yellow Pages and you'll
find listings that fill 2 1/2 pages. Some companies have even placed
half-page, full-colour ads, advertising multiple outlets and
seven-day-a-week "superstores."
(One, in what appears to be either a typographical error or a Freudian
slip, boasts that it offers "Export advice.")
In Toronto, there are listings for only 13 hydroponic stores.
In Vancouver there are 32.
That's twice as many listings as there were in 1997 (14) and more than a
10-fold increase since 1991, when there were only three.
Indeed, there are now twice as many listings for hydroponic stores as there
are Burger Kings (17).
Store owners contacted by The Vancouver Sun refused to comment on the
reason for their runaway success.
But, as Staff Sergeant Chuck Doucette of the RCMP's drug awareness section
puts it: "There aren't that many people growing tomatoes."
Last week, the Organized Crime Agency released details from a new
intelligence report that pegged the annual wholesale value of B.C.'s
marijuana production at $6 billion.
If true, that means marijuana has become one of the largest commodity
industries in the province, comparable in size to logging.
And given that police estimate as much as 95 per cent of our marijuana is
destined for the U.S. market, it could well be our largest U.S. export --
ahead of our top legal exports of sawmill products ($4.6 billion) and oil
and gas ($2.5 billion.)
The OCA's estimates of the number of people employed by the trade -- an
average of six per grow-op, or up to 150,000 people -- would make marijuana
one of the province's biggest employers, ahead of construction.
The size of B.C.'s marijuana trade puts us in a position likely without
precedent in North American history.
"I'm not aware of anywhere in North America where a single [illegal]
industry would be this important," said Jim Brander, a professor of
business economics at the University of B.C.
For marijuana advocates, such news is cause for celebration.
"Marijuana is the best industry any province can have," said B.C. Marijuana
party president and pot activist Marc Emery. "And people are damn lucky to
have it."
But others say the growing pot trade is cause for concern.
"I don't on the whole think it's healthy," said Mark Wexler, a professor of
business ethics at Simon Fraser University.
Criminal industries can create a whole host of problems, Wexler said,
everything from discouraging young people from pursuing higher education
(because "you don't need an MBA" to work in the lucrative pot trade) to
breeding violence (because growers can't rely on the courts to settle
business disputes.)
And as some B.C. communities, especially smaller ones, become increasingly
dependent on revenue from the marijuana trade, police may face growing
public resistance when they try to enforce the law.
"It's the kind of problems we associate with Colombia," Brander said.
Measuring the size of an illegal industry is difficult.
Detective Anne Drennan, spokeswoman for the OCA, said the agency's
estimates are based on intelligence gathered by police, including
information on the number of complaints received by police about growing
operations in the community.
The agency estimates there are 15,000 to 20,000 growing operations in the
Lower Mainland and a total of 20,000 to 25,000 across B.C.
If the OCA's estimates are correct, that means there is a growing operation
in at least one in every 46 homes -- possibly as many as one in every 35.
Emery, for one, thinks the OCA's numbers are too high. He estimates the
province's pot trade is worth about $4 billion, not $6 billion, and
estimates about 60,000 people are employed full-time in the pot trade.
But that would still make it one of the province's leading industries.
B.C.'s economy as a whole is worth about $120 billion. On the face of it,
then, the marijuana trade could make up as much as five per cent of our
economy. But that only represents the wholesale value of the marijuana
produced in the province.
And just as annual sales of lumber don't give a full picture of the size of
the forestry industry, the OCA's estimates of marijuana production don't
account for the "spin-off" economic benefits from the trade.
The tool usually used by economists to measure an industry's impact on the
economy is the "multiplier effect" -- the idea, for example, that when you
buy a new car, the person who sold you the car will feel richer and buy
some new clothes, and so on.
Measuring the multiplier effect for B.C.'s legal industries like tourism
and logging is difficult enough, said Lindsay Meredith, an economist at SFU.
Measuring it for an industry that, by definition, doesn't want to draw
attention to itself, is downright impossible.
"I have no idea what the multiplier effect for the marijuana industry would
be," Meredith said.
But he added there are a couple of reasons to believe it could be high --
perhaps as high as two or three times marijuana's wholesale value.
The first reason is that, by police estimates, the vast majority of the
marijuana produced in B.C. is for export -- "possibly as high as 95 per
cent," according to Drennan.
Money made from exports tends to go further than domestic dollars, Meredith
said.
"Ideally, what any country wants to do is produce for export to other
countries," Meredith said. "It creates a trade surplus and makes the
currency stronger."
The other reason to believe marijuana money may go far is that, because the
trade is illegal, those involved in the industry may be more likely to
spend their money than to hold on to it.
"The multiplier effect is probably augmented because it doesn't go into a
savings account," Meredith said.
However, the experience in other criminal economies -- like that of Bolivia
-- suggests the opposite can also occur.
One of the biggest problems with criminal profits is that those who make
them are less interested in investing in productive parts of the economy
than they are in hiding their ill-gotten gains.
That can result in large pools of money being essentially "parked" in
real-estate or offshore accounts.
Indeed, police say one of the things that distinguishes those in the
marijuana trade from hard drug dealers is that they tend not to spend their
money in ways that will draw attention to themselves. It is only after they
are arrested that police usually discover large quantities of money stashed
away.
"I think they've gotten smarter," said Constable Tom Clark, an RCMP drug
awareness officer in the Kootenays. "They realize if they drive around in
new cars and go on lots of trips, police are going to look at them more."
* * *
It happens every year in Nelson.
Around September or October, people come into town from the rural Slocan
Valley and lay down a lot of money for fancy dinners and drinks at the bar.
It's as if everyone got their paycheque at once. And, in a sense, they have.
"The outdoor [marijuana] crop has come in and they've gotten paid,"
explains Drew Edwards, managing editor of the Nelson Daily News.
The vast majority of B.C.'s marijuana industry is based in the Lower
Mainland (the OCA estimates anywhere from 75 to 80 per cent of the
province's growing operations are here.)
But it may be in places like Nelson, with little other industry, where the
impact of the marijuana trade is most keenly felt. And where one can most
plainly see the beginnings of an economy based on crime.
"I can't imagine another community that would be affected as dramatically as
Newshawk: Leni Moscovitch
Pubdate: Sat, 14 Jul 2001
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2001 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: sunletters@pacpress.southam.ca
Website: Vancouver Sun
Details: MapInc
Author: Chad Skelton, Vancouver Sun
