Greener Grass

November 10, 2003

The war on weed was alive and well in early-aughts America, with around half a million arrests made each year for cannabis crimes. Medical marijuana was legal in just nine states, and none allowed recreational use. Up in the Great White North, however, it was a different story: Years before legalization, cannabis was already an estimated $7 billion crop in Canada and the country’s most valuable agricultural product. Canada’s population was “more cannabis-tolerant,” thanks to its “army” of independent producers who smuggled tons of bud over the border, then funneled their profits back into the local economy. Robert Smith, a furniture store owner in Grand Forks, British Columbia, estimated that “of the money coming through my door, 15% to 20% comes from cannabis—we’d be on welfare without it.” Rollie Woods, head of narcotics for the Vancouver police department, was frank: “If it wasn’t for pressures from the U.S., we’d just regulate this.” In 2018, Canada did just that.