- LOS ANGELES -- Investors
who rely for advice on Forbes, the highly regarded American business magazine,
will be tipped off this month about the industry that is now outpacing
many others in North America: marijuana growing.
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- The magazine's cover story focuses on "the unstoppable
economics of a booming business" and claims marijuana is now Canada's
most valuable agricultural product, ahead of wheat, cattle and timber.
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- In the Canadian province of British Columbia, Forbes
suggests, the industry is generating US$7bn (£4bn) annually, with
signs of growing because of the changing legal climate. "Canadian
dope, boosted by custom nutrients, high-intensity metal halide lights and
20 years of breeding, is five times as potent as what Americans smoked
in the 1970s," it reports.
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- As a result, Canadian-grown marijuana is selling for
as much as $2,700 a pound wholesale. By the time that pound has come down
to Los Angeles, it is sold at around $6,000, says Forbes.
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- What makes the industry so powerful, suggests Forbes,
is that the growers are "not a small coterie of drug lords who could
be decimated with a few well-targeted prosecutions, but an army of ordinary
folks".
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- Small growers look to bring in $900 a pound, with net
profit margins ranging from 55% to 90%, reports the magazine, something
that places marijuana alongside some of the dotcom enterprises in terms
of return on investment percentages.
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- Marijuana is also a growth industry in terms of jobs,
with people earning $15 an hour for trimming the dried flowers and consultants
earning $40 an hour to help inexperienced growers get started.
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- The relaxation of the laws surrounding marijuana in Canada
has led to increased confidence in the industry.
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- Canada, which has legalised cannabis for medical use,
has authorised a company to grow marijuana for this purpose.
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- In the US, law enforcement against marijuana growers
remains much stricter.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2003
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1077190,00.html
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