MarijuanaNews.com : From Vancouver To Miami Indoor Marijuana Cultivation Produces Prohibitionist Propaganda, But A Clear Sense That Marijuana Prohibition Is A Disaster. 2 Articles

Posted February 21, 2000
(MarijuanaNews note: Again the Internet makes it possible to create
a context and helps us understand how marijuana prohibition works.

Although the reporters – especially the one in Miami – are a too
credulous in accepting what the narks say at face value, it is clear from the tone that
they have concluded that marijuana prohibition is not working.

However, what we are seeing is how marijuana prohibition really works. It
creates contraband markets with high profits and the incentive to take the risks involved
in growing marijuana.

There are two political agendas working here. As always, the agencies want more
power and more funding. The prohibitionist ideologues want more severe punishments.

The net result would be a loss of individual rights in both countries, and a
loss of sovereignty for Canada.)

See
Even At The
Economist, When Marijuana Is The Subject, Journalistic Standards Go To Pot
and
Canadian
Police Lie to The Canadian Media Who Lie To Their Readers
To Justify More Power Over the Canadian People To Please DEAland Narks
An Utterly Wretched Piece Of Pseudo-journalism

February 20, 2000
From The Vancouver Province
provedpg@pacpress.southam.ca
http://www.vancouverprovince.com/
By Steve Berry, Staff Reporter

GANGS FRANCHISE GROW-OPS

Vietnamese criminals are linking with other, more established gangs in the
Lower Mainland to “franchise” commercial marijuana growing operations.

See
“The
Asian drug cartels are targeting Washington state.”
Last Week It Was The Motorcycle Gangs. Now It Is The Yellow Peril.
Racist Anti-Canadian Prohibitionist Propaganda Runs In DEAland Papers

It’s a relatively new phenomenon brought on by the huge amount of money to be
made in the industry, said Coquitlam RCMP Const. Jim Brown.

“The Vietnamese are using the services of different crime groups known to
police,” said Brown, a member of Coquitlam’s Green Team which specializes in busting
grow operations.

Brown said the Vietnamese are using the Hells Angels and other known crime bodies as
enforcers; to transport the buds, to launder the vast amounts of money involved, and to
store and resell the product. Meanwhile, groups like the Hells Angels still run their own
operations.

But in Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam alone, more than half the recent busts have been
linked to Vietnamese organized crime, a familiar scenario across the Lower Mainland.

Last week the Coquitlam team scooped their biggest bust to date with raids over three days
on 11 sites in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Burnaby and Maple Ridge which netted nearly
3,000 plants worth an estimated $1.3 million.

Cash, jewelry and various guns, including a laser-equipped handgun and a sawed-off shotgun
with a pistol grip were also seized.

Two men, one of Italian background, and one Vietnamese, face a number of charges.

It’s an all-too-frequent occurrence – busts are made daily throughout the Lower
Mainland: In Richmond 2,700 plants were seized on Feb. 17; in Delta 204 plants were seized
on the same date; in Surrey early last week, 60 plants were seized in a house.

The marijuana growing industry’s growth can be blamed partly on lack of co-operation among
different law-enforcement agencies.

But Brown said this is changing. Last week a joint-forces operation
that involved U.S. Customs nailed eight more marijuana operations, $1.4 million in pot and
the packing and distribution centre — a first. “I think you’ll see a lot more joint
forces operations,” he said.

Conservative police estimates put the number of indoor grow
operations at about 7,000 in the Lower Mainland alone, and total pot cultivation,
including outdoor plots, in Canada at $18 billion.

“There’s no question that organized crime groups are into grow-ops,” said Staff
Sgt. Chuck Doucette, RCMP drug awareness co-ordinator.

He said the rash of grow ops is due to a number of factors:

Relatively minor penalties.

The high demand for B.C. pot at $2,000 per pound.

Until recently, a low policing priority, marijuana use is
socially accepted in B.C.

(MarijuanaNews note: That is a very important point. This puts marijuana
prohibition in B.C. – and much of Canada in the same light as alcohol prohibition in
DEAland in the 1920s. In such a context bootleggers were seen as heroes, or at least as
“charming rogues” – which may be even better. In that context, it is simply
impossible to get harsh sentences imposed on growers. Also Canada’s prison sentences
are more along European lines, than the Draconian penalties that the Canadians can see
have failed to deter marijuana in DEAland.

See the next story below.)

Now that local police forces have established that organized crime is behind the bulk of
the operations, federal resources are being brought into the fight against the burgeoning
grow-ops.
(MarijuanaNews note: Actually, local police forces have not
established that organized crime is behind the bulk of the operations. They don’t
really know that, because they don’t know how many total grow operations there are.
COLOR=”#ff0000″>

Moreover, although there is a large Vietnamese community in B.C., they are
still more conspicuous than European Canadians and consequently may be more vulnerable to
detection. White middle-class growers are everywhere, as the certainly police know.

However, busting more of them would have a negative fallout for marijuana
prohibition.)

Cash Crop

Marijuana commercial grow “franchises” are generally set up in “cells”
where a main player recruits a number of people who rent homes or warehouses.

Then someone with a knowledge of electricity sets up the equipment, about $15,000 for a
house operation. They will often steal power from B.C. Hydro by bypassing the meter.

Another establishes the plants.

A “gardener” tends the plants, sometimes going from home to home, across
municipal boundaries, sometimes, but not always, living in one of the homes.

A single house can generate half a million dollars annually from the “Kong” or
super plants which can grow almost to the size of a typical in-home Christmas tree.

The plants are harvested about every eight weeks and the buds are bagged and sent to the
U.S. and across Canada.

If police are tipped to the operation, it’s usually the “gardener” who is
charged. But police are seldom led up the chain to the original criminal mastermind.

Every police force in the Lower Mainland knows of dozens, if not
hundreds of possible grow ops in their municipalities that they are just too busy to get
to.

“What we’re doing is running from one end of the dike to the other, sticking our
fingers in as many holes as we can,” said Coquitlam RCMP’s Jim Brown.

February 20, 2000
From The Miami Herald
heralded@herald.com
http://www.herald.com/
http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald
By DAVID GREEN
DOMESTIC POT FARMERS GROWING HIGH-TECH

Pot farmers turning to high-tech horticulture

Indoor operations a growth industry

When a Miami-Dade County doctor decided to plant a tree in his back yard not long ago, he
dug a hole.

He dug deeper. And then a huge jolt of electricity knocked him onto his back.

The cause: His neighbors had needed extra power to operate their massive indoor marijuana
farm, so they ran a pirate power line under his back yard.

Unlike the doctor, the police were not shocked. They’ve seen it all when it comes to the
ingenuity of home-based pot growers: engineered superplants, computerized “grow
labs,” organized cultivation rings.

Technological advances have made pot-growing a multibillion-dollar industry. And that has
spurred police to employ some ingenuity of their own.

A host of federal and local agencies recently created a task force to root out pot
growers.

Last week, its agents raided eight Broward County and Miami-Dade “grow
houses,” netting five arrests and half a million dollars worth of dope.

But so far, operations like this have failed to stem the state’s
thriving marijuana production. Pot is now Florida’s second most popular crop — second
only to citrus.

“Money is the bottom line,” says Miami-Dade police Detective Rudy Espinosa.
“They make more money growing marijuana inside a residence than they do smuggling it
into the country.”
(MarijuanaNews note: “They” are two entirely different
people. Marijuana is being grown by Floridians – and other DEAlanders – from all
walks of life. As this article makes very clear, anyone can grow marijuana. Smugglers have
to have some organization behind them.)

GRASS IS GREENER

In the 1970s, most marijuana was imported from Mexico or Colombia.

Pot plants in those days were tall — up to 15 feet — and had a relatively low level of
THC, the chemical that produces the high.
(MarijuanaNews note: Here we go again.)
See
Potent Pot Myth Undermined By Report From
The Ultimate Authority. Cited By Swedish Prohibitionist Who Don’t Seem To Understand.
As Usual.

Since then, growers have used traditional horticulture cloning and hybridizing techniques
to create a master race of pot plants: dwarf versions as small as a tomato plant that
COLOR=”#ff0000″>produce buds with 35 times the THC level.

Last year, agents raided a house in Sunrise where they found
plants with 26.5 percent THC. The national record is 30 percent.
(MarijuanaNews note: Is there a journalist in DEAland
that will check these “facts?”)

Rapid advances in hydroponics — the science of raising plants in nutrient-enriched water
instead of soil — also have helped fuel the explosion.

For growers, these developments mean a larger crop of stronger dope in tighter quarters in
a shorter time. This has allowed the pot-growing businesses to move behind closed doors –
perhaps even onto your block.

“Neighbors always say, `Gee, we never had a clue,’ ” says
Brent Eaton, special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “It’s very
difficult to detect.”

GROWING TREND

The newfangled methods may be difficult to detect, but they’re relatively easy
to execute.

Growers rent a house, room or apartment, depending on the size of their crop. They pay in
cash to avoid leaving a paper trail.

They seal off doors and windows. They install bright lights, timers, humidifiers and air
conditioners — mimicking cycles of day and night, keeping plants at an optimum
temperature of 68 degrees.

Some rig computers to monitor the environment. This kind of self-regulating system allows
them to stay away, returning only to harvest their bounty three months later.

Low-tech growers have to come back occasionally to make atmospheric adjustments.

With elaborate labs, growers are forced to go to great lengths to conceal their
operations.

In the case of the Miami doctor’s neighbors, they needed a massive air-conditioning
apparatus to regulate their 1,400 plants. To cool the system, they ran an underground pipe
to the swimming pool behind their rented two-story $350,000 house.

They covered the pool’s surface with inflatable toys to avoid raising eyebrows.

CONNOISSEURS

Such innovations have borne fruit.

The majority of marijuana smoked in the United States is now
grown in North America, the DEA says. About a third of that is grown indoors, according to
the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
(MarijuanaNews note: This may be true, but all numbers on
contraband are necessarily speculative. Also, a lot of the home grown marijuana never
reaches the market. It is grown for personal use.)
See
New
York Times Reports Florida Drug Czar’s Fungus Plan On Its Front Page.
Did You Know That “47 percent of all marijuana seized in the United States” is
found Florida?
No? Well, It Must Be True Because The Florida Drug Czar Says So!

“We used to catch barge-loads of marijuana coming in — 20,000 pounds at a
time,” Eaton says. “That just doesn’t happen anymore.”
(MarijuanaNews note: No, they replaced it with cocaine, which is
much easier to smuggle.)
See

face=”ARIAL,HELVETICA,SANS-SERIF” size=”2″>HOW THE NARCS CREATED CRACK
face=”ARIAL,HELVETICA,SANS-SERIF” size=”1″> by
Richard C. Cowan

The supply boom has created a degree of pot connoisseurship
normally associated with wines and cigars.

Growers have developed strains of marijuana that taste nutty. Or fruity.

There is “blue collar” pot with its relaxing high for menial laborers who want
to unwind at the end of the day. There is “white collar” dope that gives its
yuppie smokers a peppy buzz.
(MarijuanaNews note: Educating the public by writing
about “connoisseurship normally associated with wines and cigars” helps
undermine marijuana prohibition.)

At the Cannabis Cup — a yearly convention in Amsterdam — marijuana aficionados swap
gardening techniques and seeds. They vote for the world’s best dope.

Chat rooms devoted to pot-smoking have bloomed on the Internet. Enthusiasts engage in
lengthy discussions on equipment, legal strategies and how best to outwit authorities.

BOTTOM LINE

With the value of high-quality pot now hovering between $2,000 and
$6,000 a pound, the unprecedented profit potential has attracted throngs of growers.
(MarijuanaNews note: That is quite a range for
“hovering.”)

A decade ago, agents raided eight indoor labs in Florida. Last year,
that number skyrocketed to 211, including 54 in Miami-Dade County and five in Broward
County.

For law enforcement, this has meant changing its tactics.

During the 1980s, police became adept at finding outdoor marijuana fields. Trained
spotters gazed down from an army of helicopters and aircraft funded by the anti-drug
initiatives of the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Other agents focused on interdiction. They stepped up anti-drug efforts in Colombia and
tightened U.S. borders.

Ironically, these very efforts helped drive pot growers indoors.
And the indoor operations are much harder to pinpoint.

STIFF PENALTIES

Not wanting to tip their hand to growers, agents are tight-lipped about their
new strategies.

They do say, however, that they pay close attention to power usage. Grow rooms require
massive amounts of electricity, which utility companies like Florida Power & Light
tend to notice and point out to the police.

Agents also have been forced to rely more on tips from informants. It was such a tip that
led to last week’s Operation Green Thumb II.

On Feb. 11, a small army of local and federal officers raided hydroponic labs in
Hollywood, Pembroke Park, Miami Lakes, Miami Shores and North Miami Beach. They seized 600
plants — each capable of producing up to a quarter pound of pot.

Those arrested in the raid face stiff penalties.

Federal law equates pot possession with that of harder drugs. State
statutes allow police to charge those caught with any number of plants with a felony.

Anti-drug advocates say this is warranted: As pot becomes
stronger, they say, so should the punishment for growing it.
(MarijuanaNews note: Now we can see where the
“potent pot” line is going politically. It is used to justify having the same
punishments for marijuana as for hard drugs. This works well for the prohibitionists and
for the governments involvement in hard drug trafficking.)

But others argue that no amount of police work will snuff out the new breed of marijuana
growers.

“If they bust a thousand people a year growing pot, or 10
thousand, it’s still just a fraction,” says 33-year-old Kyle Kushman, writer and
editor for High Times magazine, chronicler of marijuana culture. “It’s never going to
go away.

“It’s been part of every culture. And it always will be.”
(MarijuanaNews note: It is very interesting that – in
spite of having fallen for the prohibitionist propaganda about THC levels the writer gives
the anti-prohibitionist the last word. The notion that marijuana prohibition is a
“failure” is acceptable, but not the fact that it is a counterproductive fraud.
That is simply too big and too dangerous an idea.)