Illegal Crops Creep Into the Suburbs (mj)

Source: wpost



Illegal Crops Creep Into the Suburbs
Increased Border Security Forces Growers To Change Locations, Officials Say

By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 5, 2007; A14

BARRINGTON, Ill. -- This town of 10,000 in the northwest Chicago suburbs is home to upscale subdivisions, one of the wealthiest Zip codes in the country, and borders a leafy forest preserve popular with bird-watchers, hikers and runners.

So, to many people, it was a shock when federal and state agents raided the preserve two weeks ago and eradicated 18 fields of about 60,000 marijuana plants, some of them 8 feet tall.

Marijuana crops on public land are old news in Appalachia and the Pacific Northwest. But drug enforcement agents and drug policy analysts say tighter security along the U.S.-Mexico border since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has led to an increase in domestic marijuana cultivation closer to urban areas such as the one at the Crabtree Nature Center.

"Obviously, it saves the drug organizations money when they can grow it here in the U.S., instead of smuggling it across the border," said Joanna Zoltay, spokeswoman for the Chicago field division of the Drug Enforcement Administration. "Since 9/11, the border is definitely tighter. There have always been crops grown on public land, but since 9/11, there's been a steady increase."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/04/AR2007080401388.html?hpid=topnews

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if only the feds and dems and repugs would get over the 'moral' farce------and think of how much $$ mj would bring into the coffers-------!!

that appeared after 9-11? So, isn't the fact that it's now all home grown a good thing?

:shrug:

Everybody knows that.

The article I read didn't say how the cops found out about it. It was in their attic.

it was their electricity bill that raised a flag.

. . . helicopters with infrared detectors to see the rather obvious heat signatures.

Grow lights have a heat signature?

Technically they need a search warrant, but you know how that goes these days: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_n12_v66/ai_20435790

somebody snitched.

9 times out of 10 thats the case..... 1 or 2 lights ain't going to raise a flag.....

those HID lights spin the dials of the electric meter, sure. but you can use IR scope to find houses with 'unusual' HOT spots - like cellars and closets and attics. Stoves and fireplaces and people show up in the normal places. (The fairly high definition of these scopes is enough for people using them to know if you are sleeping in bed versus screwing your wife in bed AND whether or not she's wearing a bathrobe or a teddy...) (Some courts have declared such use as NOT an invasion of privacy.... 'just like looking into someone's window.' but from 150 yards away!)

While I have no doubt the ruling is being ignored, it has been ruled by the USSC that search by infrared or similar of a home is unconstitutional without a warrant.

Some strains are actually engineered to not smell. But even if one has a stinky crop, if it's relatively small garden it could be kept in a regular sized closet without anyone catching on provided that the window in the room was never opened. But when a garden gets big, then yeah, it's pretty hard to cover up the smell of it. But for the average person that wanted to maybe grow a plant or two, it's definitely possible provided it's kept as isolated and low key as possible.

NT!

Flat white paint is better (and easier) for grow rooms.

NT!

:evilgrin:

And Chicago is no stranger to underground illicit drug trade. (Al Capone etc.)

Out here in California most of these plots are run by Mexican organized crime, and they tend to be guarded by armed illegals. They've been known to take potshots at people just out for a dayhike, they've kidnapped people on occasions (including a guy in Yosemite two years ago), and they're suspected of more than a few murders. I think MJ should be legal, but these plots are nothing to encourage and are definitely not a laughing matter.

it has nothing to do with Mexico and the border. They do it because there is little risk of losing everything you own if it is discovered on public land. Of course, one runs the risk of others discovering it before the planter gets to harvest, but that's the chance people are willing to take. More times than not it goes undiscovered. My experience with this goes back to the 70's, way before the influx of Hispanics to this country.

I thought there was a "War on Terror" going on. Shouldn't that mean that maybe the guy smoking weed in his basement, is not really something that we have time to worry about anymore?

And somehow, I have a feeling that these new wiretap powers will be used more often for the failed "War on Drugs" than for anything having anything to do with terrorism.

...they can use selectively to target those who dissent. It is not just an accident or stupidity that makes them give a higher priority to pot than the far more destructive meth and heroin but the fact, in my experience at least, that the vast majority of meth users who still have enough remaining brain cells to think at all are almost all right wingers. The right wingers love terrorists, they would never do anything to eliminate them.

Otherwise, you are correct in your post.

...makes loyal Bushies.

Wow! Those cops really have put a dent in cannabis production now!

I suggest that everyone grow marijuana and use it for you medication, it's cheap it grows almost anywhere and more people will have smiles on their faces.... blessings

Tens of billions of dollars of profit is being lost every year, and more and more good citizens are being arrested. This needs to stop.

:smoke:

but it's much more profitable to the powers that be if it's kept illegal.

No, not leprechauns...

We need to see legalization (or regulation and taxation, whatever you want to call it) actually pass in one state. That should break the ice. By the time a dozen or so states have followed suit, there could be a chance of ending federal marijuana prohibition.

Legalization polls strongest in the Pacific Northwest and California, then some of the Mountain States, lowest in the Midwest and South. But it hasn't cracked 50% even at best. There is a ways to go.

Medical marijuana, on the other hand, polls at about 80% support everywhere. It has won it every state initiative except rural, conservative South Dakota last year, where it got 48%. It has now come about through several state legislatures as well. 12 states with 50 million people now have legal medical marijuana. There will be an initiative in Michigan next year (knock on wood), and legislative efforts may mature to fruition in several other states--Illinois, Minnesota, Connecticut (where the governor vetoed it this year), all look possible. Maybe New York and New Jersey, too.

This year. Brand new homes all in the upper price range. They buy them, gut them, steal power and set up grow rooms in every room. Thousands of plants.

Right in residential nabes, and nobody knows. The neighbors never see anyone. The lawns are not cared for, no garbage cans, nothing.

I have to assume if they busted 40, there must be a couple of hundred they have not found.

Most are financed by asian gangs from the Bay Area.

And the Mexican gangs grow on public property because there is no asset seizure law. They grow SHIT, use chemicals and are heavily armed.

But if you do that math it would take well over 5 million plants to supply the state with enough pot for it's users.

The Doritos, Twinkies, Yodels, Cinnabuns and M&M's left uneaten....

The horror...

I'm just wondering...

Wouldn't weed just start growing like weeds, everywhere?

growing wild everywhere so much that they couldn't eradicate it if they tried LOL I wish! :rofl:

We had an outbreak of it here in s. central Wisconsin a few years ago. It was popping up in dormant fields and along roadsides. I even found a plant growing next to the school where I work. Evidently the seeds had lain dormant for years. Didn't get much a buzz from it.

million growing hemp and the smokeable variety.

It'll never happen!!

Not when you have a family like the Duggars at the Republican helm, eventhough Hemp was an American staple in the early 1700-1800's, it was used for rope.

headquarters in Dallas last month. And several thousand more in various gardens in wooded areas around Dallas.

Nixon had a commission study this herb and they recommended legalization. Of course some people may have a bad reaction. Some people cannot drink alcohol and some cannot eat peanut butter. this doesn't mean peanut butter should be illegal.

here's an interesting video about medical marijuana Waiting to Inhale (1 hr-ish)

another issue-industrial hemp - denies U.S. farmers the right to grow a crop that is not used for medicinal or psychoactive properties.

But laws can change. If the U.S. wants to get serious about the war on terra, it would start by legalizing hemp to use as a replacement for plastic and wood and gas and oil... but that would be too rational for some people. Like the Supreme Court judge said, prohibition doesn't work and it's a really disgusting way for the state to punish people for no real reason.

Ford's Hemp Car (a few seconds)

WWII-era "Hemp for Victory" (15 minutes)

If I had a family member who needed medicinal marijuana, I would make sure they have access. When someone I knew was dying of cancer, she was given marinol. It was pretty worthless. I wish I knew then what I know now.

As far as the comparison....that's so stupid. If a variety is stronger, someone would smoke less. When looking for the above, I came across this documentary... very funny/interesting...but also presents a parent whose child had mental illness that she links to smoking..but I wonder if it was plain weed or the crap others talk about in the doc. The woman with black and purple hair is a university prof., I pretty sure. I've seen her on a documentary about science.

But I especially like "granny pot" (approx. 45 minutes)

"it saves the drug organizations money when they can grow it here in the U.S., instead of smuggling it across the border"

yeah, sure. all these "drug organizations" are out in the fucking forest preserve. planting seeds.

maybe i'm naive. but it sounds ridiculous.

used to collect the seeds and then, when riding in a car, toss them into ditches and off the sides of roads, I'm sure more than a few of those germinated and grew after that. ;)