Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
Monday, May 18, 2009, 16:26
He loved marijuana and found a way to stay high without ever running dry by turning a rented house in Pinellas County into an indoor pot farm.
He didn??t have a job, but he got paid. Every 90 days he made more than most people earned in a year when he harvested the buds and sold the marijuana for up to $5,000 a pound.
Craig had plenty of money; he often averaged $30,000 a month in pot proceeds.
He also had a chronic paranoia of getting caught and the loneliness that comes with keeping a dark secret. He lived like a hermit.
??I had no friends. No girlfriend. I couldn??t have family over. I couldn??t order pizza,? Craig said. The Tampa Tribune is not printing his full name because he is an informant for the Pinellas County Sheriff??s Office.
Craig was one of the many otherwise law-abiding citizens who read books and scour the Internet learning how to make a living, pay off debts or rake in quick cash by running a grow house, detectives said.
Those motivations have contributed to a black market that has boomed in Florida the past few years, particularly in the Tampa Bay area. Hillsborough County had the second-highest number of plants seized at grow house busts in the state last year.
In Hillsborough and Pinellas counties last year, 102 indoor grow operations were busted and nearly 8,000 plants were seized, according to a report by the state??s Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement. Pasco had 27 busts in which about 2,000 plants were seized.
Across the state, investigators identified more than 1,000 grow houses in 2008. In 2003, they found 228.
??The black market isn??t going away,? said Lt. Robert Alfonso of the Pinellas sheriff??s narcotics division. ??There??s a lot of money to be made.?
More Potent Pot
Pot still is grown outside, but such sites are more easily detected, authorities say. Grow houses are harder to spot and have been found everywhere, from low-income neighborhoods to upscale addresses, detectives said.
High-tech cultivation methods, including hydroponics and artificial lighting, also yield more potent strains: Northern Lights, Purple Haze, White Widow, Diesel ??? with no shortage of buyers.
Some suppliers come from organized crime operations, but an increasing number of grow house operators are people who have been hit by hard times, lost their jobs or decided to try their hand at indoor pot farming on a whim, detectives said.
??There??s a mixture of everybody right now,? said Maj. Albert Frost of the Hillsborough County Sheriff??s Office. ??There??s no pattern, no group, no organization.?
Federal drug enforcement agents have identified Miami-based drug organizations moving indoor operations north to more rural counties such as Polk. The population density in places such as Pinellas, though, makes it harder for drug rings to go unnoticed, detectives say.
That??s one reason Craig and others like him fit the Bay area??s typical profile of a grow house owner and operator.
??I thought I would come down here, make a ton of money and leave,? said Craig, who is from the Northeast.
The Lifestyle
Craig said he smoked his first joint when he was 17. He dug himself deep into the pot culture. He followed the Grateful Dead across the country and scored free dope where the band played.
He found out about a book on how to grow pot as he communed with fellow Deadheads.
Most first-time growers fail because they can??t balance the right mixture of nutrients, herbicide and water, detectives say. Novice growers also don??t know how to control insects.
Craig had some of the same problems at first. But through months of trial and error, Craig refined his techniques growing pot in a warehouse. He then moved operations to a rented home. Soon, he was getting about eight pounds per harvest ??? considered an average yield ??? and cashing in up to $90,000 every three months selling to a handful of customers.
??I never thought I was going to be a horticulturalist,? he said. ??But money was easy.?
Craig, who grew pot for about five years, said he considered a luxurious lifestyle. ??I probably could??ve had a nice watch, a nice car, a boat.?
He bought none of those things. Nor did he go on trips or move into a richer circle of friends.
Paranoia made him lock himself away inside his grow house. He boarded the windows from the inside and spent hours tending the plants. He grew pale and overweight. He never considered having a girlfriend because he was afraid she would snitch. He lied to his parents.
??I kept them away with lies and excuses,? Craig said. ??The lifestyle sucks.?
It??s Over
Then one day last year, he was awakened by a knock on the front door. He answered it and found detectives standing outside. Two words popped into his head: ??It??s over.?
Craig was charged with growing and possessing marijuana, was convicted and sentenced to probation. Later, he discovered his paranoia was justified: He had showed his farm to a confidential informant.
Craig recounted his story recently to the undercover detective who arrested him. The two men sat and chatted on the outdoor patio of a coffeehouse. Craig said he??s no longer interested in getting stoned, much less running a grow house again. He said he attended counseling sessions and got clean.
The detective noticed Craig had lost weight. The former grower said he has joined a gym and made new friends. He got a regular job, does volunteer work for anti-drug charities and feels a great weight has been lifted.
??I didn??t want to be scared anymore,? Craig said. ??I??m accountable to people and friends. Weed was an excuse to not face your life.?
He said he??s no longer afraid to go outside. When asked what he planned to do for the rest of the day, Craig looked up at the sky and said his afternoon was wide open.
??I don??t know,? he said. ??I might go to the beach.?
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2009 The Tribune Co.
Contact: Send A Letter To The Editor - from TBO.com
Website: The Tampa Tribune
Author: Ray Reyes, The Tampa Tribune
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galaxy
Craig was one of the many otherwise law-abiding citizens who read books and scour the Internet learning how to make a living, pay off debts or rake in quick cash by running a grow house, detectives said.
quick buck?! who are they kidding?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galaxy
High-tech cultivation methods, including hydroponics and artificial lighting, also yield more potent strains: Northern Lights, Purple Haze, White Widow, Diesel ??? with no shortage of buyers.
wow, all it takes is a hydro setup and some lights and you automatically get a more potent strain? sweet. i'm hoping for purple haze myself. i just set my rig up. should be ready to harvest by midnight!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Galaxy
Most first-time growers fail because they can??t balance the right mixture of nutrients, herbicide and water, detectives say. Novice growers also don??t know how to control insects.
once again, open mouth and insert foot. c'mon. that's part of the problem for our cause. miseducation! and we, my friends, are not the miseducated!
-shake
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
And this my friends, is the media machine at work.
I can write a fictitious story too, and call it real. (of course with "fake" names)
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
oh my god this is horrible dont any of you see what the devils weed did to this kid? it turned him into that little golem guy from the hobbit. i see now why its illegal.look at the evil it made him do, no freinds no girlfreind cut ties with his family and worse of all he went to a grateful dead concert. and associated with them deadheads and everybody knows that us, i mean them deadheads are the absolute worst kind.
but any way with the sarcasm out yeah i call bullshit on this story too. but unfortunatly the above is how some folks will see this story rather than seeing it as the young mans fear of arrest that led him to that sad state, and those same people will beleive it true.
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
i'd rather have weed than a job or a girlfriend. sounds like "craig" is a douche bag. he should've stuck to growing for personal use. what's the point in having all that money if you can't spend it and have a good time.
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
"craig" is just a RAT thats all
if he cant find a girlfriend he can TRUST with something as un-threatening as a grow house then CRAIG is the loser here not the pot growers.
get a real life craig, if you couldnt buy yourself a little more happiness with the supposed $270,000 you were earning a year growing pot, no one can help you.
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
Whats shitty is he never should have been busted or persecuted for growing a plant. We need to get Marc Emery to sell more seeds down here so we can overgrow the government.lol
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
now that i think about it, besided all that other dumb shit, all the people that weren't in his life, of all things he showed his grow op to an informant. WTF? he won't trust his family or a girl but he will show random narcs? c'mon.
-shake
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
Whats shitty is we have all been brainwashed conditioned to think that weed is bad....thats why he felt guilty about growing.
I grow have my family and friends over... they know what I do and they dont care!
If Craig's dad would have been a grower and brought him up cultivating MJ he would think its part of life...just like a farmer teaches the kids how to farm and thats part of thier life.....Is all conditioning and perspective
Pot Houses Growing Like Weeds In Tampa Bay Area
Quote:
If Craig's dad would have been a grower and brought him up cultivating MJ he would think its part of life...just like a farmer teaches the kids how to farm and thats part of thier life.....Is all conditioning and perspective
my little girl could sex my plants for me at about 11 years old. seems like im keeping her from lockin hersalf in a closet and shunning the rest of the world.
Quote:
now that i think about it, besided all that other dumb shit, all the people that weren't in his life, of all things he showed his grow op to an informant. WTF? he won't trust his family or a girl but he will show random narcs? c'mon.
my reason for callin bullshit on this story. that and there is no angle on the story it talks for a moment about the rise of grow houses but mostly just seems like a sob story about this one guy. if it were a pro marijuana peice it would tell how these things are becoming a necessity and that rather that crimanals lets make them productive citezens and legal farmers paying their taxes.
if it were an anti-marijuana angle it would be about the rise in crime and the blight on the neighborhoods these illicit farms are causing and must be eradicated for our own good
so i say it is not only bullshit but poorly written bullshit.
