# Montréal Seeds............?



## Oscar (Oct 30, 2007)

*RCMP breaks up Montreal cannabis seed ring*

Updated Tue. Feb. 28 2006 11:22 PM ET
CTV.ca News
The RCMP has busted a Montreal-based drug ring that dealt marijuana seeds over the Internet.
In doing so, they arrested seven people, seized 200,000 cannabis seeds, $300,000 in U.S. and Canadian cash, three gold bricks and several computers that formed the guts of the operation.
The RCMP said Tuesday this is the first time they've targeted seed sales over the Internet.
Last year, Marc Emery, leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party, was arrested after police raided the store where he sold mail-order cannabis seeds.
Police call the investigation Project Courriel (the French word for email). The RCMP's Marijuana Grow Operations Enforcement Team began it in November 2004.
The company in this case, Heaven's Stairway, set up six websites to allow customers to order cannabis seeds over the Internet, the RCMP said at a news conference.
Buyers from around the world paid between seven and 10 dollars per seed.
Sgt. Maj. Andre Potvin said the company did about *$3,000 per day in business*.
"The investigation confirmed that Heaven's Stairway operated in Quebec, Canada, North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the world from at least 1997 to January 31, 2006," Potvin said.
In the last week of January, the RCMP carried out raids in Montreal and the nearby suburb of Laval.
The amount of seed seized would allow someone to operated 500 cannabis greenhouses of 400 plants each, the RCMP said.
Potvin said the accused face 49 charges, including possession of cannabis seeds for the purpose of trafficking.
The accused ringleader is Richard ****** , a 38-year-old Montreal man.
Natalia B******, his 40-year-old wife, is among the other six charged.
*Not all cannabis seeds are illegal.*
"Some cannabis seeds are non-viable, which means they will not produce a level of THC, the reactive substance in marijuana plants," Potvin said.
"If it's below I think something like 1.5 per cent, basically it's not considered a viable seed. Obviously that would not be considered a criminal infraction in Canada," he said.
Potvin said some operations in Quebec grow marijuana plants to produce hemp clothing.
"There is the impression that seeds are legal in Canada and this case is unprecedented," marijuana activist Marc-BorisSaint-Maurice, who attended the news conference, told reporters.
"The upcoming court case is going to be important to try to figure out the actual status of seeds."
_With a report from CTV Montreal's Herb Luft_

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060228/rcmp_drugring_060228?s_name=&no_ads=

This is the link.

*This is why Montreal Seed Banks are hard to find now!*


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## Oscar (Oct 30, 2007)

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]*UPDATE:*[/SIZE][/FONT]

*THIS IS WHY I SHOP IN PERSON WITH CASH IN HAND!*


[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]The rumors began circulating on Canadian marijuana-oriented web sites a month ago when people reported that the web sites related to what was arguably Canada's largest seed seller -- nobody really knows -- Montreal-based Heaven's Stairway suddenly went down. *(The sites include hempqc.com, cannabisworld.com, overgrow.com, eurohemp.com, cannabisseeds.com, and cannabisbay.com.)* The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) made it official Tuesday when they announced that the company had indeed been busted in late January and that the owner, ********, his wife, and five employees faced serious charges and possible 10-year prison sentences. Other seed sellers and even buyers could face similar attention, the Mounties warned.[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]"This looks like an RCMP show bust," said Ottawa-based activist ******, a long-time cannabis activist currently concentrating on municipal drug policy with the National Capital Reformers. "I think this was meant to put a chill in the seed business and give *Prime Minister Harper's* *American friends the idea that we are doing something about the marijuana seed 'problem*,'" he told DRCNet.[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]In the past fifteen years, Canada's cannabis culture and its commercial infrastructure -- grow ops, grow shops, fertilizer companies, seed companies -- have expanded largely unimpeded. According to knowledgeable observers, there are dozens of commercial seed producers operating in Canada and an equal number of stores and web sites offering the seeds for sale. While "Prince of Pot" Marc Emery and his Emery Seed Company, then Canada's largest, were shut down by the Mounties last year, that raid was at the behest of the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the charges Emery faces are in the US. (That story is being covered by Sixty Minutes this coming Sunday, DRCNet has just learned.)[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Prior to the Heaven's Stairway bust, only three people had been convicted of seed offenses in Canada, and two of them were Emery. None of them got more than a slap on the wrist in the form of fines. Now, Canadian authorities have given notice that the cannabis seed business is fair game, and the Canadian cannabis industry is watching closely.[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]The RCMP announced it had seized 200,000 marijuana seeds, $200,000 US in cash, and gold, motorcycles, and cars in a series of raids in the Montreal area. The Mounties described Heaven's Stairway as "a Montreal based criminal organization involved in the trafficking, importation and exportation of cannabis seeds, as well as in conspiring for the purpose of cannabis cultivation via the Internet."[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]The Mounties were sending a clear signal to the cannabis seed industry. "It's an illegal business," said Staff Sgt. Andre Potvin of the RCMP's Montreal drug section. "There has been a general misconception for years even among law enforcement that cannabis seeds are not illegal to possess, and that was clarified with this operation. This has been going on for years and years," he told DRCNet, "and we realized that with the boom in the amount of growing operations that we had better start enforcing the law."[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]They are doing just that with a vengeance. The Heaven's Stairway arrestees face 49 charges and up to a decade behind bars under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and Criminal Code of Canada for processing what the RCMP said was 30 cannabis seed orders a day averaging $100 each. And since the possession of cannabis seeds is illegal under Schedule II of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, clients of the network could also receive a visit from the police, the Mounties said.[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]People who did business with Heaven's Stairway should be worried, Potvin warned. *"We seized a huge amount of data in their computers and we will be tracing it," *he said. "Here in Canada, people who bought seeds should worry.* If we can trace customers and link them to the actual growing of marijuana plants, we will be looking at charges*. We also received information from the DEA in regard to complaints they had from North Dakota and Wisconsin that kids were ordering seeds from Canada. We have transmitted all the information to all the other partners we have in the world."[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]"This is probably not a good thing for the industry," Emery told DRCNet. "If you're in the business, make sure you have a good lawyer on retainer, and be discreet! *The police have the servers for Heaven's Stairway and all those other sites, and several hundred people are at risk at a minimum. Several thousand are feeling affected and their gardens have probably come down. If you had anything to do with them, you should take appropriate action," he said.* "This will create a reduction in wealth and scarcity in our communities."[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-2]
[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Although the ******* bust is creating jitters, not everybody is scurrying for cover.[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]It's business at usual in the Up In Smoke Café about 50 miles southwest of Toronto in Hamilton, Ontario. Seed sales continue, as do sales of cannabis foods, but customers must bring their own smoke. "We openly defy the law; our existence is an act of civil disobedience," said café owner Chris Godwin. "I don't really worry too much about it," he told DRCNet. "Most rational police forces don't prioritize marijuana offenses, and most cannabis seed outlets are small shops that quietly do their business and pay taxes."[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Up In Smoke isn't all that quiet. "I put cannabis seeds on my advertising," Goodwin said, "and we've had cannabis giveaways." He's not alone in Hamilton, which boasts seven heads shops and at least one other seed purveyor. "We had a cannabis crawl where we went to six different cafes, some where they're openly selling pot, others that let you smoke openly. Canada is not utopia, but it's not so bad."[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]"I still think stores that sell seeds are not really at much of a risk," said Emery. "I think it's the import-export aspect that draws attention. I wouldn't send any seeds to the US, and I wouldn't sell seeds to someone who says he is from the US. But in Canada, the courts have never sent anyone to jail for seeds before."[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]But selling to the US and selling seeds in large volumes -- both of which Heaven's Stairway did -- can be a problem, Goodwin said. "Doing that is risky business, and things like this can happen. While I wish I could supply that demand south of the border, I don't sell to the United States."[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]One group that should not worry, said Meehan, was people providing seeds for medical marijuana patients. "Dealers supplying bona fide patients should have no problems with this increased enforcement, unless the police and the Conservative government want to get the 90% of the Canadian population that supports medical marijuana up in arms."[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Providing medicine to patients is one thing; running a commercial seed operation for personal profit without supporting the community that supports you is another. Emery was somewhat critical of ******** and his crew on a couple of counts. "When we were busted, we were able to assure people we didn't lose any data and no one was at risk because we got the word out right away," he said. *"In this case, they were busted a month ago and the police ordered them to keep quiet, and the mail kept coming. It is unfortunate that these folks are putting their own preservation above that of the community they served."*[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Emery also pointed out that ******* didn't contribute to the marijuana legalization movement, as he has. "They didn't have any political content," he said. "They did nothing to end prohibition; they were profiteers in an illegal industry, nothing more. When the police raided our bank accounts, there was no money, no drugs, no cash, no kilogram bars of gold, no wealth. *We had $12 in one account, but they didn't bother to seize that."*[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]On the other hand, said Meehan, ******* and his web sites were valuable for patients. "Those seeds were used by patients worldwide, and I know offhand at least a dozen legal Canadian medical marijuana patients who used the growing tips they provided," he said.[/SIZE][/FONT] 
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]Movement politics aside, the ******** bust is an ominous signal early in the Harper administration. Although marijuana decriminalization or legalization is favored by a majority of Canadians, those are not the people represented by the minority Harper government.[/SIZE][/FONT]


http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/425/canadaseeds.shtml

The link.


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## Oscar (Oct 30, 2007)

Just one thing.......when you do find a shop in Montréal, bring 5 and 10 dollar bills to shop.
Remember the old saying, Five and Dime?

*Those 5's and 10's are the ticket!*
Can't say why, but they are!


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## Celebrity Bob (Oct 30, 2007)

That first ad is over a year and a half old. It is now legal to send "hemp" seeds from Canada to the U.S. so now it will be easier to smuggle the MJ seeds with them. The DEA stopped blocking hemp seeds on the 22nd of this month! That's pretty recent.


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## czz (Oct 30, 2007)

anyone hear anthing oin the bcseedking thats were i got my juicy fruit from.


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## Oscar (Oct 30, 2007)

Here are a few establishments where no one will ever remember your name.

*Boutique Rock* 5522 Sherbrooke St. W., 481-6227
*High Times Smoke Shop* 1387 Ste-Catherine W., 849-4446
*Je l&#8217;ai* 159 Duluth E., 284-5393
*Labyrinthe* 486 Ste. Catherine W., 861-3697
*Montreal Seed Bank* 72 Rachel E. 
*Psychonaut* 154 Prince Arthur E., 844-8998



Area codes are probably 514 or 450.


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## Oscar (Oct 30, 2007)

czz said:
			
		

> anyone hear anthing oin the bcseedking thats were i got my juicy fruit from.


 
http://bcseedking.com/in/outdoor-marijuana/bc-juicyfruit/

Those ones?


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## DLtoker (Oct 30, 2007)

Sweet Oscar.  What province are these in?


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## Oscar (Oct 30, 2007)

La belle Province!

Montréal, Québec!


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