High potency
Marijuana has always been available throughout the United States, but quality tends to vary. Marijuana potency is not usually characterized by purity, but by tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content. Unlike the high-grade marijuana of 10 years ago, which averaged 7 to 14 percent THC, some tested samples of sinsemilla, grown indoors using heavily fertilized water, powerful lights, high heat, and humidity, have achieved potencies of nearly 30 percent.

"This isn't the stuff you might have smoked in college," said Staff Sergeant Chuck Doucette, a drug investigator with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "This is high-powered product that's producing hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for some very nasty characters, and most of it is going straight to the United States market."

Big money
That large profit is a strong motive for smugglers to move as much Quebec Gold as they can into the U.S. A pound of Quebec Gold nets $3,000 to $3,500 Canadian wholesale in Quebec. Traffickers can sell that same pound for $5,600 Canadian in New York State and as much as $7,000 in California.

Increased border security after 9/11 and stiff prison terms don't deter smugglers in search of that kind of money. Smugglers use coastal freighters, containerized cargo, go-fast boats, and fishing vessels to smuggle marijuana into the Great Lakes and across the eastern, southeastern, and western U.S. borders. Large amounts of marijuana are smuggled into the United States in containers with legitimate cargo. Go-fast boats and fishing vessels are used to bring marijuana ashore from airdrops, large ships, and coastal freighters. Customs and Border Protection reports that 28,762 pounds - over 13 metric tons - of marijuana was seized on the Northern Border in Fiscal Year (FY) 2002.

More arrests
Last year 30 truckers were arrested for trying to smuggle marijuana from Quebec into the United States. By April of this year, 10 truckers had already been arrested. Lately there has been an increase in arrests of Canadian smugglers using more unconventional means to bring Quebec Gold into the U.S. In March, a man was arrested in Vermont after he was seen collecting bales of marijuana that had been dropped from a helicopter onto a snowmobile trail. Several hundred pounds of marijuana were found in his vehicle. Two weeks before this arrest, Border Patrol agents seized 250 pounds of marijuana that had been towed across the border by a snowmobiler.

Money and the law of supply and demand continues to provide strong motives for smugglers to bring both BC Bud and Quebec Gold, as well as other drugs, into the United States.

Canada's marijuana industry in some ways represents a replay of the Roaring Twenties, when the illicit substance of choice was whiskey smuggled from north of the border, trafficking fueled by Prohibition and Americans willing to take big chances to quench their thirst. Then, as now, the border proved too long and porous to deter serious smugglers who either use crossings in remote areas, find new ways to bring their shipments in, or simply play the odds by concealing shipments in truck containers or automobile trunks, and hoping the cargo makes it across the border undetected.