INDOOR MARIJUANA FARMS GO HIGH-TECH FOR HIGH PROFIT

Somewhere in your town, a secret garden grows.

It is high-tech, lucrative and illegal. And it could be right next door.

Look for the warning signs. Strange new wires sprout from the
electrical box. Massive air conditioners run day and night, even when
no one is home. And those "lawn clippings" in the garbage smell like
the Grateful Dead.

Indoor marijuana labs have replaced methamphetamine labs as the
neighborhood drug factories of the moment, Lt. Robert Sullivan of the
Pasco County Sheriff's Office said at a news conference Tuesday.
Deputies raided 10 indoor growing operations in the first quarter this
year - more than in all of 2006.

In the past, Sullivan said, more marijuana farmers grew their crops
outdoors for better yield and higher potency. But after airborne raids
crippled many of those farms, a new generation of white-collar
growers used technology to move the trade indoors. Many of the labs
are in middle-class neighborhoods.

And the quality is the same or better than before: The new growers use
a system of artificial lights and automatic feeding troughs to
generate a crop that can fetch up to $2, 000 a pound in Florida and
perhaps $7, 000 in the Northeast.

Some of the plants are so potent and bursting with resin that Sullivan
said there are stories of drug agents in other counties getting
contact highs during raids.

One of Pasco's latest raids took place May 2 at 18923 Rolling Oaks
Drive in Hudson, in the Rolling Oaks Estates subdivision just south of
the Hernando County line. An investigator got a tip from the electric
company about a tampered meter box and unusually high energy
consumption. These can sometimes be telltale signs of marijuana labs
because the grow lights - and the air conditioning required to
counteract their considerable heat - need electricity.

Deputies say they found 94 plants inside the house, as well as lights
and fans and rolling papers. They arrested the man who lives there on
charges of cultivation of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia
and theft of utilities.

Sullivan said at least one major grower claimed that the plants were
for his personal use.

"Guess what, " Sullivan told the reporters. "With 100 plants, you and
your entire family could smoke for the rest of your lives."