The Globe is reporting today about how certain parts of rural Quebec are seeing a rise in conspicuous teenage wealth due to the extremely profitable business of farming marijuana for organized crime.

While the students seem happy with all the cool stuff their drug money can buy, local economies suffer:

“Lured by quick cash, the students are turning up their noses at old-fashioned summer jobs such as life-guarding or bagging groceries.

[One local high school principal] said kids can make $25 an hour working for drug producers, who police say are linked to organized crime. Local businesses complain about a worker shortage.”

Since you can’t grow coca in our northern gardening zones, and since poppies are very easy to spot from the air, there’s a simple solution to this “growing” social problem – and at least one local Mayor is endorsing it. Make pot legal. Then we’ll have all the francophone bagboys and lifeguards we need.

And the alternative? Arrest all these rural kids and give them criminal records just before they graduate high school.

(Please note: The Globe link URL for this story has the following descriptor in it “…reefer20/BNStory/Front/” – so now we know the official Globe style-guide reference for pot.)