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  Canadian Grass Causes Big Buzz in Mexico
Posted by FoM on August 01, 2001 at 07:49:13 PT
By Linda Diebel, Latin America Bureau 
Source: Toronto Star 

cannabis Of course the world's best pot comes from Mexico, eh? Wrong. Blame Canada. With great glee on the weekend, Mexico's largest newspaper splashed across its front page a special investigative report on Canada's booming business in what Mexicans call la mota.

And, well, it's going to be hard to be sanctimonious about drugs in Mexico after this. That northern homegrown outranks Mexican grass in potency, experts told La Reforma. Holy smoke, Canada even exports seed . . . to Mexico!

Free-wheeling Vancouver is the ``Amsterdam of the Americas,'' according to Reforma. British Columbia and Ontario are awash in marijuana. And the world's largest undefended border between Canada and the United States is a joke - a mere bump in the road on the way to big-time drug profits for Canadians.

These days, marijuana fortunes are being made and consolidated ``just like during the prohibition years in the United States of the 1920s when (Canadians got rich) smuggling contraband whiskey and rum into the States,'' writes Reforma's Canadian correspondent Maximo Kuri.

He does stop short of referring to ``Canadian drug lords.''

But, he notes, high-quality Canadian seeds are now being shipped to Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, two down-and-dirty Mexican towns on the U.S. border and home to big drug cartels. The guys who work for these organizations leave their enemies in little pieces in the desert.

Kuri, based in Vancouver, interviewed city police there, RCMP officers, federal justice officials and Marc Emery, founder of the Marijuana Party of Canada, as well as compiling statistics. His report for the Reforma group, with newspapers in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara, smashes the stereotype of a clean Canada tut-tutting Mexico for its dirty drug trade.

It portrays a Canada where marijuana growing is out of control; where judges are lenient on growers; where Ontario is an important producer for the northeastern U.S. and where marijuana is British Columbia's top export to the U.S., dwarfing everything else from pulp and paper to oil and gas.

Reforma pegs the annual B.C.-U.S. marijuana trade at $3.8 billion (U.S.), compared to $2.8 billion for wood products, $1.58 billion for oil and gas, and $1.25 billion for electrical energy.

It estimates the marijuana business employs 150,000 people in the Vancouver area alone, and quotes city police as saying the drug grown there is 10 times more potent than it was 20 years ago.

``You don't get many people growing tomatoes in this city,'' Reforma quotes an RCMP sergeant. ``Canadian dope is better than Mexican,'' says one headline on Kuri's stories.

``Canadian marijuana is the highest quality in the world,'' Vancouver police officer Scott Driemel reportedly says, adding it is because of the high content of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the active euphoria-producing substance in pot.

Marijuana booster Emery, who makes a killing selling Canadian seeds on the Internet and edits Cannabis Culture, says Mexican quality is actually better, but poor shipping reduces its punch.

``It's a shame because (Mexican grass) could go for 10 times more, but by the time it arrives in the United States, it's spent a whole year packed in blocks, very heavy, and finally sells cheap,'' he says. Mexican marijuana sells in U.S. cities for $2,000 a kilo, while a Canadian kilo can fetch $16,000 in New York, Emery adds.

He ships 450 types of seeds worldwide, including sativa, native to Mexico, which offers a ``buzz that is cerebral, euphoric and vigorous.''

``Dope is one of Canada's major agricultural products,'' Emery told the newspaper.

It must be noted that an unnamed federal official does stand up for Canadian justice telling Reforma ``marijuana is as illegal as any other prohibited drug or substance and Canadian law punishes the growing and trafficking of marijuana.''

Meanwhile, Emery, who was arrested 10 times, is still out there running a mail-order business with sales of $9 million over seven years, and growing fast.

Note: Newspaper smokes out story on potency of homegrown pot. Oh, Canada. Land of lakes and loons, maples and moose . . . and marijuana.

Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Author: Linda Diebel, Latin America Bureau
Published: August 1, 2001
Copyright: 2001 The Toronto Star
Contact: lettertoed@thestar.com
Website: http://www.thestar.com/

Cannabis Culture
http://www.cannabisculture.com/

Canadian Links
http://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htm

CannabisNews Articles - Canada
http://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=canada


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Comment #11 posted by CALISTYLES on August 28, 2001 at 16:38:23 PT:

VANCOUVER FAMOUS FOR ITS INDO!!!!!!!!!
VANCOUNER GOT THE BEST CHRONIC IN THE WORLD FUCK MEXICAN BAMMER, CANADIAN CHRON FOR LIFE!!!!!!!

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #10 posted by Mista deals on August 09, 2001 at 13:03:59 PT
Who says mexican is betta HAHA?
HMM mexican is cheap shit to make a dalla on hmm lbs in mexico go for about 25 us dollors if u pick up 100

an in canada lbs of hydro go for on the low side of 1300

But any one who likes to smoke mexican ova canadain bud is crazzy the qulity isnt there.. hmm the mexicans jus hav feilds of the shit growing an while in canada it is mabe a few acres.. but the few acres produce if not the same amout very close.. but with a thc level much higher

mean while in im amsterdam. an i aINT seen no green bud betta then here... an the hash is aight too... cheap as fuq.. an every one grows it:) lets see u hav a lil belcony grow 5 plants an make a lil profit.. to bad its a lil harder in the uUS but we get away with it:) see ya on the west side

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #9 posted by chuck on August 02, 2001 at 17:13:00 PT:

quality
i live in va and i can easily obtain canadian and mexican pot and the canadian is mush nice it is more potant and not as compressed
the mexican pot is usally really seady and stemy and taste like shit but its a lot cheaper

so they have there positive and negative factors

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #8 posted by jAHn on August 01, 2001 at 20:06:23 PT
Beautiful News...
...ahhh!
It's about time we could argue about a sensible subject instead of picking through Media-Fodder and other complicated obstacles.
I would love to spend time in either of these places. Canada, Mexico, Spain, Holland, Jamaica, and let's not forget the U.K. coming down with a anti-US-drug-war symptom which is helping their people and lawmakers see that Cannabis isn't nearly as bad as those racists from the early 20th century would have you believing!
If good journalism is practiced, Richard Cowan is right, this DrugWarMongrul will be brought down, brick by brick...keep up the awesome work, people of the plant- we're on our way to some kind a trip.


[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #7 posted by mr sub on August 01, 2001 at 13:49:02 PT
what kind of sandwich is that?
that would be a shit sandwich on whole hemp bread

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #6 posted by Sudaca on August 01, 2001 at 10:13:26 PT
The hammer and the anvilq
Canda - Mexico / Mexico - Canada

What a nice sandwich to be in

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #5 posted by TroutMask on August 01, 2001 at 09:01:20 PT
How about a price war?
Once their potencies are nearly the same, the only competition left will be a price war! Won't that be too bad...not!

-TM

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #4 posted by scott on August 01, 2001 at 08:34:24 PT
it's a good thing
Now here's a good thing to get in the middle of!

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #3 posted by greenfox on August 01, 2001 at 08:29:41 PT
They will BOTH compete...
against me. hahaha.... :)

sig,fik,
-gf


[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #2 posted by Rambler on August 01, 2001 at 08:16:27 PT
Healthy competition
But I dont think it's like some pepsi/coke competition.It's
more a matter of locale.Here in the Southwest,the Mexican
is getting pretty good,but when I visit Seattle,the buddage
is spectacular.The Mexican stuff is almost always very
compressed.

Wherever you go,good weed is nice,and I enjoy it.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #1 posted by TroutMask on August 01, 2001 at 07:56:59 PT
Yay! Competition
Hehe. Nothing wrong with a little potency competition between Mexico and Canada!

-TM

[ Post Comment ]


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