POT GROWING MOVES TO SUBURBS

Illegal Marijuana Growers Turning Hot Real Estate into Hothouses

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.

"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."

Estrada watched on Jan. 12 as federal drug agents busted into the
unoccupied, stucco-clad house, hauling out enough marijuana plants to
fill a truck, along with high-intensity lights, fans and other indoor
hydroponic growing equipment.

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.

Gordon Taylor, a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agent
in Sacramento, says investigators believe the houses are linked to an
organized crime syndicate based in San Francisco's Chinatown.

"They're purchasing homes and plunking down marijuana factories smack
dab in the middle of our residential neighborhoods," Taylor says.
"Our theory is they're picking newer neighborhoods because of the
relative anonymity. They know the neighbors don't know each other as
well as they would in established neighborhoods."

Suburban pot-growing was found elsewhere -- Merrillville, Ind.;
Westminster, Md.; Kankakee County, Ill. -- though on a smaller scale
than in Northern California and not necessarily tied to organized
crime. Last summer, agents broke up more than 50 "grow houses" and
arrested 35 people in St. Lucie County, Fla., an enterprise "with
tentacles that stretched" to New York, the DEA says.

In December, New Hampshire state police seized more than 10,000
plants in a four-bedroom, neo-Colonial house in the quiet town of
Derry. Last month, police in Bellevue, Wash., seized 300 plants in a
grow house and arrested three men.

The prevalence of illegal marijuana cultivation in California -- more
plants are seized in the state annually than in any other -- is due
partly to "medical marijuana laws that have created a permissive
attitude," Taylor says.

"Couple that with the fast profits that can be made and relatively
lax penalties a person faces under California marijuana laws, and
you're more or less inviting organized crime to enter the industry."

California voters legalized medical marijuana in 1996.

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.

Indoor pot seizures in California have skyrocketed, according to DEA
figures, from 54,569 in 2004 to 196,000 last year, although it's
unclear whether tougher enforcement or more growers is the reason.
The Northern California suburban busts since August have netted
23,602 plants with an estimated $94 million street value, the DEA says.

Critics say the DEA overstates medical marijuana's impact on illegal
activities and inflates the value of seizures to justify its budget.

"On any given day, millions of Californians are smoking marijuana, so
the medical-marijuana piece of that is relatively small," says Ethan
Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which promotes alternatives to
the war on drugs.

The presence of organized crime in the pot business is nothing new,
Nadelmann says. "They've been involved on and off for many years."

What is new is the size and sheer audacity found in the suburbs. The
operations followed a similar pattern, according to Taylor and court
documents in the recent cases:

Growers paid up to $750,000 for houses in new subdivisions, usually
obtaining 100% financing and putting no money down. They gutted
interiors and used every inch to grow pot, knocking down some walls
and cutting holes in others to run water lines and ducts. They
installed irrigation systems with timing devices and brought in water
tanks, pumps, generators and power packs. They built scaffolding to
raise plants 2 feet off the floor.

To avoid suspicion from large power usage, growers bypassed a
utility's electric meters and created their own circuit boxes. No one
lived in the houses. After neighbors tipped off police last summer
that garbage cans weren't being taken to the street on trash day, the
growers started putting the cans out. They also hired gardeners to
cut the lawn.

Taylor says tips from neighbors led to many of the busts, but most
residents were unaware. Feelings are mixed over whether their
neighborhoods are now safe.

"It still seems like a nice neighborhood," says Richard Johnson, who
moved here a month ago. "It happened, they're gone, so hopefully it
won't happen again."

Samantha Malone says she's moving.

"I have babies. I don't want to be around that," she says. "Who's to
say it's all taken care of anyway, or it's not going to happen next month."

Rick Estrada says that since the busts, "the neighborhood is more
aware. We're going to be a lot more alert to what's happening and who
our neighbors are. We're going to notice if no one's ever home."