MARIJUANA HOUSES BLOOMING IN POLK

Crackdown in Miami Sends Growers North

LAKELAND - The numbers are striking.

Sheriff's deputies and police say they have raided and dismantled 34
marijuana "grow houses" in Polk County through the first 10 months of
2007. In all of 2006, that number was three.

What's going on? Law enforcement officials say criminal organizations
based largely in Miami are choosing Polk County as a site for what
amounts to marijuana export manufacturing plants.

The houses are producing high-quality, high-cost marijuana with
elevated levels of THC, the drug that gives marijuana users their high.

And the producers are raising it for wholesale distribution. Little is
ending up on Polk streets, where marijuana seized typically is of
lower quality, said Polk sheriff's Lt. Steve Ward. "A lot of it seems
to be headed for New York," Ward said.

It's a problem Polk didn't have as recently as a few years ago. And
the money involved is large enough to finance sophisticated operations
and spark violence.

Two grow houses, one in northeast Polk and one in the Lakeland area,
were discovered soon after home invasions that left people injured.
Both were in quiet neighborhoods not known for crime.

Orderly streets, with neighbors accustomed to minding their own
business, suit grow operators, Ward said.

"They move in to some very nice neighborhoods. They'll buy or rent,
and the first thing they'll do is throw up a privacy fence and
renovate," he said.

In Polk, if detectives charge a homeowner or renter with "maintaining
a dwelling for drug use and sale," they count the home as a grow
house. Ward said detectives probably could charge anyone growing
marijuana for personal use at home with maintaining a drug dwelling.
But in practice, that doesn't happen, he said.

Indoor Farms

The houses detectives find are not owned and operated for personal
use. Rather, they are indoor farms that use extensive fertilizer,
lighting and hydroponic growing equipment and techniques to grow and
harvest marijuana plants worth hundreds of thousands of dollars
several times a year.

Ward traces the sudden influx into Polk County and other less urban
areas across the state to increased law enforcement pressure on grow
operations in the Miami area.

"The organizations there have been hit pretty hard, but they've been
able to gain a foothold up here," he said.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration echoes that assessment,
saying on its Web site that "numerous grow operations have been seized
in South Florida and Southwest Florida" and that indoor cultivation
has spread north.

"Marijuana cultivation has become a lucrative business in Florida,
especially indoor grow operations," DEA says. "These marijuana grows
exist all over the state and are found in residential and rural areas
in equal amounts."

To protect themselves, Ward said, organizations running marijuana
operations have developed a cell-like structure meant to insulate
members from investigators.

Ward said detectives have found that the people who buy the homes
generally don't know the people who set up the wiring for heat and
light or those who tend the plants. "They don't know each other, so we
have a hard time getting to the main people," he said.

It also has proved difficult to put away the people detectives catch.
They generally post bail and disappear, Ward said. Detectives are
trying to counter that by turning to the federal legal system, which
has generally harsher marijuana laws.

Industrial grow houses add a new dimension to the long-standing debate
over whether marijuana should be legal, like alcohol or cigarettes.

Opponents of criminalization have long complained that marijuana is
less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes and that making it illegal
creates unnecessary criminal activity.

Prohibition Theory

Richard Cowan operates Marijuananews.com and is a board member of
NORML, an organization that advocates legalizing recreational
marijuana use for adults. Cowan calls indoor cultivation "an
international issue," but argues that it's a logical result of
criminalization.

Tough enforcement of outdoor growing and "mom and pop" indoor
operations has made the trade more lucrative for criminal
organizations, Cowen said.

"Prohibition works the way it always does. It drives up the price. The
price has become high enough to justify the risk," he said.

Numbers are difficult to verify, but the DEA site indicates that
marijuana demand is thought to be flat or down slightly in recent years.

DEA special agent Oscar Negron disputes the idea that enforcement is
driving up the price, crediting the quality of the crop with that.