Pot growing moves to suburbs---------marijuana McMansions'

[rodeodance]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-06-suburban-pot_x.htm?csp=1

Pot growing moves to suburbs
Updated 2/7/2007 12:09 PM ET


By John Ritter, USA TODAY

LATHROP, Calif. — Rick Estrada didn't think it particularly odd that he never saw his next-door neighbor or that curtains were always drawn. On his block of new homes, everyone was a recent arrival. In fact, some homes still sit empty, owned by investors hoping to "flip" them at a profit.

Never in his darkest dreams did Estrada think the two-story house a few feet from his contained an indoor marijuana-growing operation that authorities believe is the latest wrinkle in drug traffickers' efforts to hide their illegal business.

ON DEADLINE: More on 'marijuana McMansions'

"We came from San Jose to get away from that stuff," says Estrada, 42, a medical clinic supervisor with a wife and three young children. "Now here we are and it's right next-door."
.............

Agents that day raided five other houses nearby in Lathrop and one in Tracy, both suburban cities full of commuters to San Francisco Bay Area jobs. In August and September, 41 houses were busted in Elk Grove, Sacramento and Stockton.

[Caution]

1. This is nothing new

Just another reporter looking to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Every community has a house or apartment of three that is solely used for the manufacture of illegal drugs (whether that means growing pot, cooking meth or creating LSD). This has been true for decades, ask any DEA Agent, FBI Agent or narcotic task force officer.

[Zhade]

2. "Darkest dreams"? Does the author cash checks that say "for propaganda services"?

What ridiculous bias!

[LeftyMom]

3. Bringing it to the buyer, you know. There's nothing else to do out in the exurbs

so the teenagers drunk, smoke and fuck like you would not believe while their parents work their asses off to afford to live out there "away from all the bad influences." :eyes:

[youngdem]

4. So what? Legalize it already.

It is simply absurd.

It's prohibition is SUCH a HUGE drain on the economy, it is unbelievable.

So fucked up that you can buy alcohol, which you can die from withdrawal from, and nicotine, which causes all of the symptoms they try to pin on pot (save for the gateway desperation bullshit), but you can't buy a harmless, non-addictive, enjoyable, relaxing herb which even our lying government cannot bring themselves to assert actually has ever killed anyone.

[noonwitch]

9. If it's legal, it can be taxed

And it's a good kind of new tax, in that it punishes no one. The money raised could be used to do a lot of good things-like fund children's programs, or rehab for serious drug offenders, or job training programs for people left out of the "new economy".

[The Gunslinger]

15. yea but big pharma will take a big hit in the pocketbook

Therefore pot = illegal

[tanyev]

5. Probably the only way some of them can keep paying the mortgage.

[demnan]

6. Well if the mortgage wasn't so high

you wouldn't need an illegal business to pay it! :)

[WorseBeforeBetter]

7. That's right - it's all Mary-Louise Parker's fault!

"TV shows such as Showtime's Weeds, about a single mom who makes ends meet selling pot in a fictional California suburb, seem to legitimize an illegal drug, Taylor says."

[IntravenousDemilo]

8. Legalize it!

The only way to get rid of "illegal grow-ops" is to make them not illegal anymore; then they'll just be "grow-ops". If everyone could just grow their own in their back yards, it would drive the price down and put the drug cartels out of business, as pot still makes up the bulk of their sales. And if marijuana were readily available, people wouldn't feel they need harder drugs. In fact, the only reason pot can be considered a "gateway drug" is that the same people who sell it often have the more addictive hard stuff on hand as well. If folks could just go out to the garden and pick off some buds, they wouldn't have to deal with those people at all, and thus they wouldn't be as likely exposed to crack and meth and so on.

How would it be if we just let the police concentrate on real crimes for a change, rather than waste good money, time, and resources on a losing battle? Dope isn't going away; it's mainstream now and we might as well get used to it.

[ixion]

10. exactly...

:applause:

[Uncle Joe]

11. I believe they market them as "happy meals" n/t

[Greyhound]

12. There is a demand, and that demand WILL be met, regardless of how

many rights we surrender or how fascist a police-state we become. The more the government escalates the more profitable it becomes and the more the suppliers will charge, and spend, to maintain that supply.

But it does make for a good distraction from the real crimes being committed against us and good filler between the ads.

[The Anti-Neo Con]

13. Growing in McMansions makes sense!

You can grow A LOT of pot in a 5,000+ sq. ft. space.

[catzies]

14. Finally. A good reason to have McMansions in the first place. n/t