Once a relatively safe, profitable business for outlaw bikers and mobsters, organized crime is moving away from the marijuana market because legalization and homegrown pot are making any gain not worth the risk, experts say.

The market share in the pot business for organized criminals has already slid as pot-loving "disorganized criminals" perfected their horticultural skills. There wasn't much need to smuggle pot into the country when Canadian cannabis connoisseurs liked the homegrown stuff better, experts say.

The days when Hells Angels and mobsters enjoyed a strong hand in Canada's marijuana trade will be just a hazy memory by the time pot is to be legalized next year, according to some experts.

"A pretty small part of the marijuana industry today is what I call organized crime," said criminologist Neil Boyd of Simon Fraser University — a change from a few decades ago, when big-league criminals thrived in the pot trade.

That's a major shift from the mid-2000s, when outlaw bikers worked with traditional Mafia groups to move into exporting Canadian marijuana, according to Kash Heed, former B.C. solicitor general, minister of public safety and West Vancouver Police chief. Most of that product was exported to the U.S., Heed said.

Rick Ciarniello, a Canadian spokesperson for the Hells Angels, politely brushed off questions about whether the world's largest outlaw motorcycle club has a position on legalized marijuana.

"Some are prone to believe all the police hype and propaganda," Ciarniello said. "If that is to be believed, the Hells Angels must have such a position. The fact is; the hype and propaganda is wrong. As such, the short answer is no."

The efforts of organized crime to control the pot trade have been undermined for the past three decades by "disorganized crime," according to Alan Young, an associate professor at the Osgoode Hall law school. Many of these are green-thumbed potheads growing marijuana for friends.

Others are in it for the money but don't resort to traditional organized crime hallmarks of corruption, collusion and violence, Boyd says: "They're really just business people."

Legalization of marijuana in some American states has cut the demand to smuggle it south. In Colorado and Washington State, where marijuana was recently legalized, pot prices have dropped almost 50 per cent over the past year, Boyd says, and lower prices mean less incentive to break the law.

"I suspect there's not going to be much money in cannabis at all," Boyd said. "I think things are changing.

"I think they (organized criminals) already have been withdrawing from the market."

A veteran says organized crime is entering a period of readjustment — and potential new opportunities — regarding marijuana in Canada. "They're all trying to get into the legal side of it," says the officer. "They have so much money they can manipulate the stock. Any criminal wants to legitimize his business."

Small-scale cultivation of pot would likely be allowed, much like it's now legal to make limited amounts of beer or wine for personal use. Amateur enthusiasts should be allowed to grow four plants per household, according to the Final Report of The Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation.

Former Toronto police Chief Bill Blair is the Liberal's point man in shaping marijuana legislation. He declined to be interviewed for this article.

In Toronto, police will continue to crack down on illegal marijuana dispensaries until the law is changed, spokesperson Mark Pugash said, adding that marijuana at some pop-ups has been found to contain pesticides, mould, rat feces and insecticide.

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Experts agree it will be a mistake for the government to overtax pot and drive the price up, as this will create an opening for criminals.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau clearly supports the push to regulate illegal pot pop-ups. In a meeting with the Star's editorial board in December, Trudeau said: "We haven't legalized it yet. Yes, we got a clear mandate to do that. We've said we will. We've said we're going to do it to protect our kids and to keep the money out of the pockets of criminals."