Hidden Harvest: The Rise and Fall of North America's Biggest Cannabis Grow-Op - Softcover

Coakley, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1770410856 ISBN 13: 9781770410855

Publisher: ECW Press, 2014

Synopsis

A thoroughly researched and authoritative page-turner about this unprecedented operation -- and bust

Mark Coakley lifts the veil on the riveting story of a group of criminals -- Ontario police would call them "a gang with no name" -- whose most famous exploit was turning an abandoned Molson beer factory north of Toronto into a giant indoor jungle of cannabis. The operation produced tens of millions of dollars in profits and involved gun smuggling, slavery, violence, pornography, and running cocaine and other illegal chemicals.

When the grow-op was raided by police in 2003, the massive scale of the operation drew international media attention. The true masterminds behind the operation were not arrested until 2011, and it was only then that the real story behind North America's biggest grow-op came to light.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Coakley practiced law for 10 years before becoming a full-time writer; he regularly contributes to Sharp and Urbanicity. His previous book is Tip and Trade: How Two Lawyers Made Millions from Insider Trading. He lives in Ontario.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Hidden Harvest

The Rise and Fall of North America's Biggest Cannabis Grow Op

By Mark Coakley

ECW PRESS

Copyright © 2014 Mark Coakley
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-77041-085-5

CHAPTER 1

BOOK I

In an abandoned beer factory in the heart of Ontario, just south of Barrie, there once grew a secret garden. Its legendary flowers, when set aflame and inhaled, would give some users joy; others, relief from pain; others, paranoia; others, dependency; and others, amnesia.

Now that garden is gone.

The jungle of almost 30,000 cannabis plants — with long, finger-like leaves swaying in the humid wind from strong electric fans — thrived under lightning-bright lightbulbs all year long in the giant concrete-walled building by Highway 400. Some of the illegal salad grew in horizontal brewing tanks lined with shiny stainless steel. Some grew in huge rooms, with newly built cinderblock walls covered by sheets of white plastic fastened with red duct tape. And some weed grew hydroponically in a janitor's bedroom.

These hidden harvests of sticky, stinky, all-female flowers would bring to men and women in the illegal conspiracy both highs and lows, fun and misery, wealth and years in prison.

This is the biography of North America's biggest grow op.

* * *

On flat land at the corner of Highway 400 and Big Bay Point Road, just south of Lake Simcoe's Kempenfelt Bay and the fast-expanding city of Barrie, stood a huge, modernist, gray concrete building. Ranging from two to four stories in height, it covered hundreds of square feet. Around it, a few clumps of road-salt-damaged trees clung to life. There were no other buildings nearby. As large as it was, the Molson beer factory occupied only part of the northwest corner of the vast piece of land. On the exterior wall of the building's second floor, a red-and-white mural reading MOLSON could be easily seen from cars on Highway 400. Barrie is an hour's drive north of Toronto, and the building was a landmark, both to the 150,000 or so local residents and to people with cottages up north. People giving directions would often say, "When you see the Molson plant, you're almost in Barrie."

The modern history of the property began with tobacco. In 1971, Benson & Hedges — a Canadian corporation owned by U.S. tobacco dealer Philip Morris that made and sold cigarettes in Canada — bought the Barrie-area greenfield for $12 million.

Benson & Hedges put up the building and then took over Ontario's last independent beer brewery, Formosa Springs, which made Club Ale, Diamond Lager, Tonic Stout, Bock Beer, Octoberfest and Birra Italia. The tobacco company moved Formosa Springs to Barrie, expanding production from 80,000 bottles of beer a year to 6 million bottles. Formosa Springs exclusively used Barrie springwater, from a well inside the building — at that time, some of the purest, cleanest water in the world. Only a few years later, in 1974, Benson & Hedges got out of the alcohol market to focus on selling nicotine.

North America's oldest brewing corporation, Molson, bought Formosa Springs and the Barrie property that year, dropping the Formosa Springs label and restructuring the plant to manufacture a number of beers, including Export, Canadian, Canadian Light, Molson Dry, Golden, Molson Light, Excel, Lowenbrau and Durango. About a third of the beer from the Barrie Molson factory was sold across the border to U.S. customers. Most, however, was used in Ontario.

In 1975, 70 acres of unused land south of the brewery was severed and made into an entertainment complex called Molson Park. Its stadium would host big music concerts — Loll

Edition details

• Publisher: ECW Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1770410856
• ISBN 13: 9781770410855
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284