Police responded to the tip in the 300 block of Albers Rd and immediately realized that a grow -op of significant size was up and running. Discovered quite by accident this industrial sized operation operation had been running smoothly for up to two years.
What police had come across were 4 full size greenhouses all packed with marijuana plants. It is estimated each green house held in excess 1100 plants for a total of over 4500 plants. The plants were in full bud with a street value that would run into the millions of dollars.
These combined seizures over a two week period resulted in over 5500 marijuana plants being removed from the illegal market this summer but more than likely represents a small percentage of the marijuana grown in the Okanagan.
For communities in the Okanagan, the reality is surfacing, this illegal activity is turning into a major part of local economies.
For the past few decades, rural communities have been transforming into island-like economies but instead of being surrounded by water, they are becoming surrounded by a sea of costs.
High transportation costs, tax increases without having access to services and an erosion of road and infrastructure maintenance all contribute to an environment that is inventing a new kind of rural economy that will build greater revenues within a smaller and smaller footprint.
Island economies are largely self-sufficient and in recent times have developed niche-export opportunities. This is becoming the case in the Okanagan as well.
But we are approaching a fork in the road. Presently, rural communities believe they are underserved and ignored, schooling, policing, health services are all running inadequately in rural areas. As governments off-load rural responsibilities and continue to apply pay-to-play methods that encourages migration to the cities, they actually erode their presence of influence in rural areas.
This loss of influence and control over the population contributes to a conversation most avoided by community leaders, and the avoidance is quite deliberate.
The economic impacts of regional marijuana grow-ops have been significant for the past three decades and after 30 years of unbridled growth the industry has become mature and is far beyond the scope of resources that local law enforcement have to prevent continued growth.
Presently, we have no idea of the social cost grow-ops have on our communities when compared to the revenue they generate, and we would rather not ask such a question.
Discoveries may surprise us.
Not knowing the details of this underground economy means not knowing how it really impacts us today and in the future. In fact, the grow-op economy has been an anchoring force for rural economies that have been struggling in the wake of natural resources being removed from local economies by governments.
A new road for rural communities approaches on the horizon as agricrime surfaces as a possible career choice for more and more residents unable to find well-paid work in the mainstream economy.
This causes more residents to prefer less policing and government presence and moves them to reduce their environmental footprint even further so they can bring about their place within an invisible economy that flies under the radar of the mainstream economy.
Agriculture in BC contributed $1.2 billion to the provinces gross domestic product yet the Fraser Institute estimated that BC’s Marijuana growing industry to be worth $7 billion with 17, 500 grow operations, which might suggest that each operation on average is generating about $400,000 per year. Much of this industry exists either hidden indoors or outdoors in remote rural areas.
The fringe areas around the Okanagan remain ideal growing areas, some of the best in the province. If only 10% of the BC grow operations existed in the Okanagan, that would mean that $680 million is generated annually from marijuana grow-ops which is substantially more than the provinces wine industry.
But agricrime doesn’t stop with pot. Provincial legislation has caused local egg and beef producers who sell from their farm to join marijuana producers as agricriminals. This growing part of the rural population will build their own economy that will influence the regional economy that will surprise both law enforcement and economists.
Over the next few decades giant stealth economies will develop that exist inside a micro footprint hidden from much of our economic and land use planning. As the valley population grows, this size of this part of the economy could be as much $6 billion annually by 2030 and will largely shift from being illegal products sold into export markets to products sold locally into domestic markets here in the Okanagan.
Money laundering will become an advanced science in the Okanagan and will be split between two agricrime communities, one that is corporate and driven by organized crime the other being community based and driven by independent individuals and families that operate as small businesses and within consortiums of like-minded-people.
Between these two communities will be law enforcement that will not have the capacity to deal with the magnitudes of activity and resources that agricrime will generate.
Livability-based Economies like the one we have in the Okanagan generally has a segment within it that spends rabidly on lifestyle choices, such spending cultures are prime targets for organized crime because of the links to drugs, gambling and prostitution. Production of marijuana in the region is a resource commodity for organized crime that is not going away.
In a century, the culture of agricrime could evolve into a sophisticated network of almost tribal-like communities that may have immense resources and investment throughout the valley. Historically, such power has led to further criminal activity, gang violence, extortion and even terrorism, but it can also become fully legitimized much the same way as some Canadian families did as a result bootlegging during prohibition.
The opportunity that exists today is to legitimize as much of the agricrime economy as communities will accept. Licenses to grow medicinal marijuana; cooperative community-based slaughterhouses; resource salvaging and small-scale commercial access to crown land and resources will all help to soften the influence for agricrime to get a large foothold on the region.
The planning that accounts for this layer of the regional economy is presently non-existent, yet the revenue it produces now and into the future will allow it to purchase, ski hills, golf courses, casinos and real estate developments and as an economic unit it will be the largest community of capital development in the valley. As an investment vehicle, various agricrime sources will rival multinationals within the next fifty years.
We’re much to accustom to pass this problem off to law enforcement and expect them to solve it. The results are often disappointing.
Agricrime is a product of bad planning and laws that are superficial solutions to social issues that we are presently hiding from.
Band-aid solutions don’t work. We would be wise to face our fear with regards to this underground economy and ask the question: Just what did we do to create this in the first place, and how can we really fix it?
Gaining a better understanding of the agricrime problem would be a good first step.
(30)
Don Elzer writes and comments about the future, current affairs, lifestyle and the natural world. He is a director of the Watershed Intelligence Network publishers of The Monster Guide, which can be found at www.themonsterguide.com
He can also be reached by email at: treks@uniserve.com
