cannabisnews.com: Marijuana Thriving Behind Closed Doors 





Marijuana Thriving Behind Closed Doors 
Posted by CN Staff on February 01, 2004 at 20:44:52 PT
By Eric Weslander, Journal-World 
Source: Lawrence Journal-World 
Douglas County smoked the rest of the state when it came to the number of indoor marijuana plants seized by law-enforcement agencies the past two years, according to new data compiled by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. There were 603 marijuana plants seized from indoor growing operations in Douglas County during 2002 and 2003, according to the bureau. The county that came closest to that haul was Trego County, with 385 plants seized.
The KBI's agent in charge of marijuana eradication said he thought the numbers showed that times haven't changed much since 1970, when a CBS "60 Minutes" episode highlighted the marijuana subculture in Lawrence and Douglas County."Here it is 30 years later, and we've got the same damn problem in the same county," agent Jeff Brandau said.And he said the problem was bigger than it appeared, that the agency's numbers barely scratched the surface. At most, he estimates, they represent 5 percent or 10 percent of the indoor marijuana growing in the attics, barns, basements and hidden rooms of Douglas County.One fact that has changed since 1970 is that more and more marijuana is growing indoors instead of in the wild -- partly in response to increased surveillance from the air."You can avoid detection. You get multiple seasons. You don't worry about the elements at all," said Dan Dunbar, a drug prosecutor in Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney's office. "You don't need that much space to really put together a nice little crop."The equipment needed to set up an indoor operation -- lamps, fertilizers, irrigation tubes and the like -- can be found and purchased on the Internet. Pot-minded botanists supply growers with tips via magazines, books and the Web.In a recent Douglas County case -- Brandau wouldn't identify it specifically -- a man was growing 50 plants indoors. Every six weeks, they yielded 2.5 pounds of high-grade marijuana, which he sold for $1,200 per quarter-pound, Brandau said. "We're always coming up with stuff in Douglas," Brandau said. "There's a market over there."Anti-marijuana efforts in Kansas are bankrolled by federal taxpayers through the U.S. government's Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression program. It provided about $160,000 for Kansas law enforcement last year, Brandau said.Through the trap door Finding the indoor operations is more difficult than spotting outdoor marijuana fields from the air, authorities said. But sometimes they get lucky.In February 2003, Lawrence Police Detective Dan Ward spotted a trap door while serving a nondrug-related search warrant in a home in the 900 block of East 13th Street. Ward testified he heard a "gurgling sound," opened the door, and discovered a growing operation of roughly 40 plants.One common way to find the drugs is the time-tested method of getting people to squeal."Without divulging too much as far as investigative techniques, people tell on people," Dunbar said. "Law enforcement does their job. They'll get somebody with a joint or in possession of a bag of marijuana -- of course they're always wanting to find out where it comes from."Rick Frydman, a Lawrence defense attorney, said he thought it was common for police to find growing operations by going through trash, conducting surveillance of stores that sell equipment used for growing marijuana, or obtaining people's energy bills to see if they're unusually high. Grow lights consume a lot of electricity.Mysterious numbers At the end of each year, the KBI asks sheriffs to submit a report on the number of plants seized in their counties. The totals are reported to the federal government. The number of plants helps determine how much pot-fighting grant money Kansas receives from Uncle Sam in coming years.The KBI keeps separate tallies of indoor and outdoor plants seized. There were 367 outdoor plants seized in Douglas County the past two years -- some growing wild, others tended by humans -- compared with nearly 1 million seized in Finney County, all of which were growing wild and untended.That type of marijuana -- known in common parlance as "ditch weed" -- is still subject to the eradication program even though officials say smoking it does little more than give the user a headache. In the 1970s, that type of marijuana was packaged by the kilogram and often sold to be mixed with more potent marijuana.As with any crime statistics, the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, officials said. The reporting of the data to the KBI is voluntary, and some cases fall through the cracks. For example, the case discovered by Ward in February 2003 apparently didn't make it onto the KBI's annual summary.But Brandau said he suspected that even if all agencies reported 100 percent of their busts, Douglas County still would be at the top of the list for indoor growing.But even when cases are included in the KBI's report, it can be difficult to find more details about them. For example, on July 3, 2003, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized 157 high-quality sinsemilla plants, what amounted to the biggest indoor bust of the year in Douglas County, according to the KBI's figures.But a DEA spokeswoman for the agency's Midwest offices said she didn't know anything about the case. KBI officials said they couldn't release information about it, in part because it was being handled by the DEA.Legalization debate In Kansas, first-time possession of marijuana is a misdemeanor. A second offense becomes a low-level felony. Cultivation of marijuana -- defined as growing five or more plants -- is a felony on first offense that can fetch anything from probation to four years in prison, depending on the offender's criminal history.Voters in many states have moved to decriminalize or reduce penalties for the drug in recent years, but Brandau said he didn't buy the argument marijuana was harmless.He cited federal statistics showing that about 67 percent of people on probation are past marijuana users. In 2002, about 36 percent of high school students admitted using marijuana in the past year, the figures showed. Figures from a "Children's Report Card" for Douglas County released last week showed the percentage of teens here using marijuana had grown from 12.9 percent in 1999 to 16.5 percent in 2003."I think marijuana really is our biggest problem, and it's because of what it does -- opens up illegal drugs to our young people," he said. "It really does need to be attacked."Frydman, the Lawrence attorney, takes the opposite view. It's ridiculous and hypocritical, he said, that the government prohibits marijuana but allows the use of deadly cigarettes."It's disheartening the amount of money we pay for law enforcement for something that people do voluntarily," he said. "I just see it as such a waste of law enforcement, such a waste of everybody's time and everybody's money. I'm hoping to see a day where we'll look back at this as the dark ages." Sidebar: Marijuana in Douglas County and the surrounding area  For the past two years, Douglas County has led the state in seizures of indoor marijuana plants. The top five counties:Douglas: 312 plants in 2003; 291 in 2002; 603 totalTrego: 0 plants in 2003; 385 plants in 2002; 385 totalWyandotte: 194 plants in 2003; 68 plants in 2002; 262 totalJohnson: 178 plants in 2003; 73 plants in 2002; 251 totalFranklin: 0 plants in 2003; 157 plants in 2002; 157 totalWhat's it worth? A Kansas Bureau of Investigation official said 50 indoor plants were seized in a recent bust in Lawrence. Those plants, he said, could produce 2.5 pounds of high-grade marijuana every six weeks. Each pound sold for $4,800, the agent said.Douglas County seizures in 2003:July 3 - 157 plants (DEA)Sept. 26 - 86 plants (KHP)Oct. 7 - 13 plants (DEA)Oct. 13 - 56 plants (LPD)Agencies: U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Kansas Highway Patrol and Lawrence Police Note: Indoor crop mostly avoiding detection. Source: Lawrence Journal-World (KS) Author: Eric Weslander, Journal-World Published: Sunday, February 1, 2004 Copyright: 2004 The Lawrence Journal-World Website: http://www.ljworld.com/Contact: http://www.ljworld.com/site/submit_letter/ CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on February 03, 2004 at 14:23:31 PT
LTE
  Why does a plant that grows in the ground cost $4,800 per pound? Because of the laws of supply and demand. The more raids, the higher the price that can be charged for what's left, which means more people see an easy way to make money by growing it. No wonder it never seems to go away. And why does the DEA agent say marijuana "opens up illegal drugs to our young people", when he doesn't believe the same about alcohol? The only connection between marijuana and harder drugs is the way the government forces them into the same black marketplace. Pot is a bulky, low-profit item; why wouldn't an unscrupulous black marketeer prefer to hook people on something smaller, more profitable, and more addictive? In Holland, marijuana is sold over-the-counter in plain view of the police. Anyone found with harder drugs in such a place is immediately arrested. They can also enforce an age limit, while kids in America find it easier to buy pot than beer. And contrary to the predictions of the drug warriors, per-capita marijuana use in Holland is about half what it is in the USA.It has been over seventy years since America ended its "noble experiment" of alcohol prohibition. Some people still have problems handling their alcohol, and some people even die as a result, but nobody is saying the solution is to return the industry to organized crime. Whoever called an illegal drug a "controlled substance" got it wrong, since these seem to be the substances the law has the least control over.
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Comment #2 posted by VitaminT on February 02, 2004 at 07:46:09 PT
If a Joint contains 1 gram . . . .
then that joint is worth $10.71 - Would you pay that?I wouldn't - of course I have a brain unlike this moron "Agent"What's it worth? A Kansas Bureau of Investigation official said 50 indoor plants were seized in a recent bust in Lawrence. Those plants, he said, could produce 2.5 pounds of high-grade marijuana every six weeks. Each pound sold for $4,800, the agent said.
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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on February 02, 2004 at 05:07:00 PT
Why is it hypocritical?
"Frydman, the Lawrence attorney, takes the opposite view. It's ridiculous and hypocritical, he said, that the government prohibits marijuana but allows the use of deadly cigarettes."Because a lot of the people that support cannabis extermination are regular church goers; and they have a Bible in their hands that claims God created all the seed bearing plants and said they were all good on literally the very 1st page of the Bible; yet the regular church goer disobeys that premise and supports caging their brother for using a plant anyway.It is not just hypocritical; IT IS BIBLICALY HYPOCRITICAL!Notice, they admit they know their spending money to exterminate, "ditchweed".That indicates they know they are using tax money to do nothing.The mentality of the lowly cannabis prohibitionist and exterminist is lacking... it's backwards.We have people flipping burgers that deserve to make policy and people making policy that deserve to flip burgers.Notice they admit the use of cannabis is not going down.Why is it thought that Cannadian bud is so vital when We show evidence of supplying Ourselves with Our own bud?We don't need no Cannadian bud, We have plenty of Our own, but the Fed. Gov. would like Us to war with Cannada over this or any other issue to impose for many other reasons... it's just a way to get Our foot further in their door...It's not about the plant, or the ditchweed.420In case You haven't heard: Democratic Presidential nominee, Dennis Kucinich, put in writing that as PRESIDENT He WILL: "DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA" -"in favor of a drug policy that sets reasonable boundaries for marijuana use by establishing guidelines similar to those already in place for alcohol." (POSTED ON His website!) http://www.kucinich.us/issues/marijuana_decrim.php 	NOTE: Colorado residents must register to vote as a Democrat by the Feb. 13, 2004 deadline to be able to vote for which Democrat will run against George W. on April 13.
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