N.H. POT BUST MAY INDICATE CANADIAN TREND MOVING SOUTH

[redacted] was sitting in a blue minivan in her driveway set back 100
feet from the road of her [redacted] home when police approached her.

[redacted] her residence tucked away in a development that doesn't
even have a street sign.

Police arrested [redacted], as well as eight other people, earlier
this month in a raid of homes worth between $400,000 and $450,000 in
affluent suburbs. Within the homes they found laboratories built to
grow and distribute millions of dollars worth of marijuana.

All totaled, police seized or raided 12 New Hampshire homes,
including three in Chester and one each in Derry and Londonderry.

The bust, being called the largest ever in the state, yielded more
than $30 million worth of marijuana. The homes looked so unsuspicious
that some had lit Christmas trees and pictures of family members on
their walls.

While the sophisticated, large-scale growing operations shocked
neighbors, they've been in existence for some time. Canadian law
enforcement officials have been aware of them for at least 15 years, they said.

The problem is so widespread in Canada that task forces have been
created specifically to target this approach to growing and selling
marijuana, according to Derek Ogden, director general of drugs and
organized crime for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Last year, the task forces netted 1.6 million plants, he said.

Shortly after the New Hampshire homes were raided, state and federal
law enforcement authorities were pointing to the busts as indicative
of a southern movement of the Canadian trend.

"This is a trend we had been seeing in Canada for as long as I have
been a U.S. attorney," said U.S. District Attorney Thomas Colantuono,
New Hampshire's federal prosecutor since 2001.

"We were very concerned that this might move south across the border,
and the fact that it has is very disturbing to all of us in law enforcement."

The New Hampshire operations were discovered after faulty wiring
caused one of the houses to catch fire in Hooksett. Fire hazard is
high, because the methods used to grow the plants involve high
consumption of power, as well as the storage of chemicals and fertilizers.

Often, Ogden said, the home growing operations lead their task forces
to organized crime groups working from multiple homes.

"We sort of see it as a shared problem back and forth across the
border," he said. "Some of the organized crime groups specialize in
certain areas. (And they have) counterparts in the United States."

In choosing where to look for home labs, Ogden said, task forces
consider "risk and reward."

"They'll go where they think the risk is not that high, and they see
the demand is there for marijuana," " he said.

The involvement of organized crime groups also fits with trends
observed by drug enforcement agents in northern California.

In the affluent Sacramento suburbs of Elk Grove and Stockton,
officials recently uncovered 41 homes being used for this purpose.
All 41 of the homes were linked to one group, according to Casey
McEnry, special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration's San
Francisco office.

"With the amount of money being made off of marijuana, traditional,
organized crime groups are getting involved, as well," McEnry said.

In the past, marijuana growers in the United States tended to use it
for personal consumption, or distribution on a smaller scale.

McEnry said the groups like to set up in communities where people
have long commutes, and not a lot of interaction with their neighbors.

"They're moving into bedroom communities, where you work long hours,
you go home at night, you're not paying attention to what your
neighbors are doing," McEnry said.

That's a profile that's in line with this month's raids in New Hampshire.

Both the growing techniques and the geography of the homes raided in
New Hampshire are comparable to methods used by Vietnamese drug
trafficking organizations in Western Canada. Over time the
organizations moved east, and now are making their way into New
England, said Charles Miller, spokesman for the National Drug
Intelligence Center.

"The method of operation for that grow in New Hampshire is similar to
that which has been seen in other grows and seizures in Canada,
attributed to other Vietnamese drug trafficking organizations," he said.

Still, Colantuono declined to comment on whether those arrested were
connected or part of a criminal organization. The case is currently
under the jurisdiction of the United States District Court in Concord.

But some experts believe other factors could be driving up the number
and size of home labs in the United States.

Tighter border security, for instance, could be forcing dealers to
grow within the country.

"A lot of marijuana growing in Canada is being shipped south and
therefore there's a risk to suppliers of being caught at the border,"
Colantuono said. "By producing south of the border, you cut out that risk."

Others say there's a growing demand for the lab-grown marijuana,
because the chemicals it's grown in make it twice or three times as
potent as that from Mexico.

"These are criminal entrepreneurs," said Steve Robertson, special
agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, D.C.
"When they flood one market, they (look) for another."

So far, state police in Vermont and Massachusetts haven't come across
similar labs.

But still, they are on the lookout for something that easily could
pop up in another unsuspecting neighborhood.

"Is this a new type of drug trafficking? I don't know," McEnry said.
"But they are obviously moving into suburbia."