While glancing through the current BCBusiness Magazine today, I stumbled across the stat: Marijuana sales ($7.5 billion annually) are are the #3 driver of the BC economy, after forestry ($10 billion) and Construction ($7.9 billion), and dwarfing oil and gas at a paltry $3.5 billion.  I’m in the wrong corner of life sciences. 
From the article:

Sadie says she’s after Triple-A weed, which is classified as the highest grade of B.C. bud and sells for about $2,000 a pound. The couple’s crop alone is worth about $10,000, she explains, and the garden replenishes itself nearly five times a year.

The size of the industry is based on an RCMP estimate rather than BC Stats, but even if the number is halved marijuana still makes a staggering contribution to the BC economy, most of it in exports.  Weed dollars pour in to hardware stores, electricians, and grow-op suppliers.  One supplier, Abbotsford based Advanced Nutrients, grossed $20 million in 2003.  One quote estimates that there are 250,000 people involved in pot’s underground economy in BC, which would be about 17% of the province’s population. 

So, what I am wondering, is how the Goliath-size of the BC Bud economy affects public policy towards enforcement.  Certainly any government would have to think carefully about stamping out its 3rd largest industry.