THE BUDDING TYCOON OF POT

Prohibition Makes Criminals Rich - Legal Marijuana Would Make Charles
Scott Rich

Ian Mulgrew: Bud Inc.

Ian Mulgrew, The Vancouver Sun's legal affairs columnist, is the
author of a new book called Bud Inc.: Inside Canada's Marijuana
Industry (Random House Canada, 320 pages, $35.) This passage concerns
Charles Scott, who has been growing pot for nearly two decades, is
one of B.C.'s premier marijuana-seed producers and had been supplying
"prince of pot" Marc Emery with his extensive collection of strains
from around the world. But, given his rising reputation as a
marijuana Mendel, Scott decided to begin selling his seeds to the world.

In a tiny Irish bar in Vancouver's Gastown, Charles Scott washed down
a plate of bangers and mash with a Harp lager. Then he giddily made
his way through two large grocery bags filled with mail. Another of
his strains had come first in another prestigious European growers'
competition.

"I did $100,000 worth of business last month," he said. "I just
cashed $15,000 US worth of money orders. It's unbelievable. I've got
another $34,000 US in my jeans. But I'm being smart and declaring it
all. I've got my accountant paying Revenue Canada already. It's just
great, man."

His seed business skyrocketed as a result of his win in Amsterdam and
the full-page advertisements in High Times. Advanced Nutrients was
also touting his use of their products on its website. Nearly 90 per
cent of his business was American. He got hundreds of thousands of
hits a day on his own website. Scott figured he now was among the top
five global seed retailers -- maybe even number one.

"Four years ago, man, I was sleeping in a teepee with my kids," he
said. "Now I've just ordered a huge one for the backyard as a
plaything. Times have changed."

He was paying down his mortgage, leasing a new car, buying stuff he
had always wanted, such as a new greenhouse, and opening a store --
Toys for Boys -- to put some of his money to work. Still, there was a
downside. He and [Marc] Emery were battling each other -- the
Internet was ablaze with their flame-throwing.

Emery considered Reeferman's decision to go retail and compete
head-to-head to be a declaration of war. He told the world Reeferman
was a pariah and declared Scott persona non grata soon after the
welcome-home-from-Saskatchewan party.

"I feel like I have been betrayed by Reeferman Seeds," Emery told the
world on his website. "He hasn't restocked us in his seeds for over
four months . . . . Even though I was in jail for two months since
then, and continued to pay him, he hasn't restocked us. Insultingly,
even though I have paid him over $160,000 over the past five years
($40,000 this year) for his seeds, and my catalog in my magazine has
promoted him for five years, Reeferman (formerly Prairie Fire Seeds)
has never bought an ad in Cannabis Culture magazine, ever!

"I am thunderstruck . . . . Wow! Complete betrayal in every possible
way . . . . It infuriates me every time I think about him . . . . I
have already dumped the three thousand seeds of Reeferman's I have in
stock into the Indoor or Outdoor Mixes."

Emery pulled the curtain back on Scott's unsavoury white-supremacist
past -- a revelation to many in the marijuana community. Scott called
his friends and me after it happened, shaken and worried the
information would cripple his business.

He said that initially he worried his conflict with Emery and the
release of the details of his past would cause him loss of face with
his connections in Holland and New York, many of whom were Jewish.
But all stood by him, he said, and most said they had known all
along; they preferred to judge him for who he was, not who he had been.

"And look --" He held up a shopping bag bulging with orders. "Hey,
Emery at least trained the clerks at Money Mart so I can go in and
cash $15,000 US in money orders without a problem." He chuckled. "The
chartered banks give me a real hassle. I don't care what he says any
more . . . . I'm off to China in a few weeks to fill a container full
of goods for my store."

Before I left, I asked him what he thought of the most recent events
and where things were going. I wondered if he was still as
optimistic. He shook his head. He didn't think the signs indicated a
quick end to prohibition.

Obvious evidence included the rabid anti-pot rhetoric that followed
the killing of the four Mounties in Alberta. Although the murders
were the work of a psychopathic chop shop owner who also happened to
grow a little dope, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, Public
Safety Minister Anne McLellan, B.C. Solicitor-General Rich Coleman
and U.S. drug czar John Walters blamed marijuana growing. It did not
augur well for change.

Easton's predictions -- a return to the Roaring Twenties and all the
violence and corruption that entailed -- were coming to life more and
more every day.

A thirty-five-year-old motorcycle gang leader under indictment in
connection with a Hells Angels-run smuggling ring was executed in
Prince George. His hands were bound to the steering wheel of his
pickup deliberately parked so he could watch his mansion-like home
burn to the ground; he was then shot several times.

The Angels are much more than a motorcycle gang because of the money
provided by marijuana and other illegal activities. They are a
massive, multi-tentacled international crime conglomerate with
expensive lawyers and accountants on the payroll. The membership
controls an impressive array of legal companies and has interest in
scores more -- cafes and tanning salons, tattoo parlours and clothing
boutiques, grocery stores and trucking companies, motorcycle shops
and restaurants, travel agencies and real estate firms.

But they are not alone. Large ethnic-Chinese, ethnic-Italian,
ethnic-Vietnamese and ethnic-Indian gangs are involved in the
marijuana trade. There's room for all of them and they all have their
customers -- most in the United States. And cities across the
continent could see the fallout of the trade in schoolyards, on
street corners, in the morgue.

Marijuana is the anchor tenant in organized crime's shopping mall of
vice. With legalization, the criminals won't disappear, but their
wealth, their scope and their reach will be significantly diminished.
I believe legalization is needed, even though it will bring its own
set of problems.

Right now, society gets all of the headaches, none of the benefits
and scant share of the prodigious profits. In spite of the mounting
evidence that pot prohibition is not working, Ottawa continues to
push a ticketing regime for users and tougher sentences for growers
and traffickers. It remains to be seen whether the courts will change
tack and get onside.

Worse, the U.S. Supreme Court again upheld Washington's tough stand
on pot, saying it was okay for federal law enforcement agencies to
charge medical patients for smoking cannabis in spite of state laws
providing protection for them. The result was a wave of high-profile
raids on medical marijuana growers and providers across the U.S. and
a more aggressive stance internationally. In May of 2005, a secret
grand jury in Seattle indicted Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams.

In late July, Emery was arrested in Nova Scotia, where he was on a
speaking tour. Rainey and Williams were picked up in Vancouver. All
three were detained on warrants, issued at the request of the U.S.
government, charging them with selling cannabis seeds, conspiracy to
manufacture marijuana and money-laundering. An 18-month DEA [Drug
Enforcement Administration] investig ation had concluded Emery was
shipping an estimated $3 million in annual seed sales to nearly every
state in the union. Uncle Sam had brought the campaign against
cannabis to Canadian soil.

Emery and his associates face life imprisonment if they are handed
over to the Americans, given the broad anti-pot statutes that allowed
Washington to jail Tommy Chong. The extradition fight could be a
high-profile brawl that might last years, a long and lengthy battle
that will be a lightning rod for the debate about cannabis policy and
American hegemony on Canadian social and cultural mores.

I don't think Canadian courts will begin aggressively jailing growers
and traffickers or agreeing to requests to send citizens to face
trial and lengthy jail terms in the U.S. I think this is the last
gasp of the prohibition and that the damage the criminal law is
causing is becoming more and more evident to everyone, especially
since the government continues to send mixed messages. Vancouver
Mayor Larry Campbell was appointed to the Senate in August 2005. The
long-time activist for saner drug policies immediately said he would
use his position there to press for marijuana legalization. His
predecessor, Philip Owen, was on his way to Afghanistan, the latest
stop on his agenda as an international advocate for drug policy
reform and an end to the prohibition. He told audiences around the
globe that they could witness proof that such an approach works by
visiting Vancouver.

Charles Scott agrees the prohibition should end. "Everything from the
sex trade to just about every evil we have in society is profiting
off this prohibition," he says. "It's wrong. It's horrible that it
has gone on this long."

One way or another, Scott figured, medical marijuana would win the
day. It will take time -- years probably. But Canada and every other
country must find a workable system that allows patients and
researchers ready access to a standardized supply of quality
marijuana, he insisted, and he was ready to fill that massive need.

"I look at this as an investment in my kids' future," Scott said.
"That's how I feel about my seed company. I'm not going to stop
because I know eventually the prohibition is going to end and my
business will be fantastic. It's already fantastic. I am going to be
the Seagram's of the pot industry."

I left him counting his money.