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newgrowerNY

Indoor marijuana farms go high-tech for high profit
05-08-07|SP Times

Somewhere in your town, a secret garden grows.

It is high-tech, lucrative and illegal. And it could be right next door.

Look for the warning signs. Strange new wires sprout from the electrical box. Massive air conditioners run day and night, even when no one is home. And those "lawn clippings" in the garbage smell like the Grateful Dead.

Indoor marijuana labs have replaced methamphetamine labs as the neighborhood drug factories of the moment, Lt. Robert Sullivan of the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said at a news conference Tuesday. Deputies raided 10 indoor growing operations in the first quarter this year - more than in all of 2006.

In the past, Sullivan said, more marijuana farmers grew their crops outdoors for better yield and higher potency. But after airborne raids crippled many of those farms, a new generation of white- collar growers used technology to move the trade indoors. Many of the labs are in middle-class neighborhoods.

And the quality is the same or better than before: The new growers use a system of artificial lights and automatic feeding troughs to generate a crop that can fetch up to $2, 000 a pound in Florida and perhaps $7, 000 in the Northeast.

Some of the plants are so potent and bursting with resin that Sullivan said there are stories of drug agents in other counties getting contact highs during raids.

One of Pasco's latest raids took place May 2 at 18923 Rolling Oaks Drive in Hudson, in the Rolling Oaks Estates subdivision just south of the Hernando County line. An investigator got a tip from the electric company about a tampered meter box and unusually high energy consumption. These can sometimes be telltale signs of marijuana labs because the grow lights - and the air conditioning required to counteract their considerable heat - need electricity.

Deputies say they found 94 plants inside the house, as well as lights and fans and rolling papers. They arrested the man who lives there on charges of cultivation of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and theft of utilities.

His name: Jason Robert Stoner.

Stoner, 31, went free Friday on $3, 500 bond. He declined to comment Tuesday.

Sullivan said at least one major grower claimed that the plants were for his personal use.

"Guess what, " Sullivan told the reporters. "With 100 plants, you and your entire family could smoke for the rest of your lives."

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Disclaimer: I love to grow

 

kcbennie

I think the biggest mistake that indoor growers make is getting too big. It's just greedy. If you harvest 4 plants every 8 weeks, you should be able to get 16 to 24 ounces, every 8 weeks (using a bucket system and about 1400 watts of light for flowering). That's anywhere from $4800 up to $10,800, every 8 weeks. I don't know about you, but that's a pretty good supplemental income. You could use flourescent lights for clones and veg. to cut down on electricity, and with the right ventilation, you don't really need an air condition. People get greedy, then they get busted.

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"My friend said 'Man, the weather is really trippy' and I said 'The weather's not trippy. It's just the way that you perceive the weather that is in fact trippy.' And then I though to myself 'I should've just said 'Yeah.''"

- Mitch Hedburg

Migz420

people steal electricity, and get busted.

Most of all, people tell other people, and get busted.

Don't steal your juice and don't tell your friends, be reasonably safe and pay attention to detail, you'll be ok.

In this case, he was tampering with the meter box. If he just pays his elevated electric bills on time with his "supplemental income" nobody gives it a second look.

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Plainsman1963

Damn right, there does.
Factory? A garden? Growing a plant?
Higher potency???
I'm going better, based on my experience.
I call Bullshit. THC cannot be absorbed through the skin, so if they are getting a "contact high" it's because their brother officers are toking up and they are inhaling too deeply. Might as well just hit it, bro.

Best thing is what has already been mentioned. Grow for personal use, tell no one and don't steal electricity, dump your trimmings in the trash, etc. and you too can have a ready supply of the good herb sitting around.

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"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." - Claire Wolfe

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damndeadhead

I don't know if I am the only one that caught this, but the grower that got busted has the last name of Stoner hahaha

 

newgrowerNY

As with any drug, this simply is not true. Tolerance will build and you will be smoking 10x the amount then when you started, if you didn't limit yourself through the course. At 2 ounces a month, 100 plants (average 5 ounces a plant) is 500 / 24 = 20.8 years (give or take of course, not everyone is the same)

So its not cut and dry like that, but I don't think its right that they embellish with such frequency.

As with any war, this is true propaganda. They are trying to scare the local population.

I too love how they use Marijuana Lab and Drug Factory .. Implies creation and synthetic. Growing a plant is Organic .. regardless of how you grow it.

Victor_vicious

I would think leo would be jumping up and down with joy. Meth labs are dangerous and the toxic chemicals used can contaminate the structure. While I did see one stupid post about how dangerous the amount of chemicals one grow operation had, I haven't seen any reports of leo getting shot at when 'busting a grow factory', or being blown to bits.
His $7000./lb price for the Northeast might be accurate, if you had it delivered to you in New York, but why would you. For that same amount of money you could set up a fairly nice grow operation in the northeast. Trust me on this one, I can show pictures to back it up.
VV

kcbennie

I did catch that. The fact that the guys name is Stoner makes me wonder if this whole story isn't just made up. Leave to some square ass cop to make up a story like this and name the guy "Stoner."