INDOOR WEED CULTIVATION ON RISE

Feds Say Outdoor Enforcement Is Driving Operations Inside

The Peninsula has sprouted a number of indoor marijuana cultivators in
recent years, but this year in particular, indoor pot grows are
popping up -- well, like weeds.

"Indoor grow operations are absolutely on the rise," said Cmdr. Mark
Wyss of the county's Narcotics Task Force. "There's a huge profit in
indoor growing for operators, and that's the driving trend."

The task force has busted 16 indoor grows so far this year -- and the
number could easily rise to twice the amount of indoor marijuana
cultivations in 2006.

Last year, local law enforcement shut down 10 indoor grows. In 2005,
only seven indoor growers were busted.

The trend of growing marijuana indoors reaches far beyond the county,
according to a U.S. Department of Justice report released earlier this
month.

California may be a leading state for outdoor marijuana cultivation,
but many major cannabis producers are moving their operations indoors,
according to the report.

The Department of Justice cites law enforcement's "vigorous" efforts
to bust outdoor operations as a primary reason for growers' retreat
indoors.

Once cannabis producers make the move indoors, they tend to benefit
from higher profits, because cultivation is year-round, and controlled
growing conditions help growers produce higher-quality marijuana,
according to the report.

"The ones who know what they're doing are genetically engineering
theirplants to have a higher THC concentration," said Advertisement
Special Agent Gordon Taylor of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.
"There's so much money to be made in high-potency marijuana."

That's just one of the advantages to growing indoors versus outdoors,
according to Wyss.

"If you're operating in a residential neighborhood and putting on the
disguise that you're just living in a single-family dwelling," Wyss
said, "a grow could go on for an extended period of time without being
detected."

One troubling aspect of the indoor cultivation boom is the number of
people who have converted entire homes into marijuana grow rooms, Wyss
said. Prior to 2003, the nature of indoor cultivation in the county
was very different.

"Five years ago, you wouldn't come across a whole house converted into
a grow," Wyss said. "You would find a spare closet where someone had
rigged fluorescent lights and grow marijuana in that
environment."

Now, Wyss said, such old-school techniques are out of fashion. The
marijuana busts in recent years have involved homes filled with
marijuana and grown with high-powered lighting fueled by stolen
electricity.

To conceal their operations, many producers go to elaborate lengths --
including sealing windows or using electronically-timed lights to
simulate the turning-on-and-off of lights characteristic of a normal
residence.

Last week, the task force busted two indoor pot operations; both were
in middle-class neighborhoods in Daly City.

The rush to indoor cultivation isn't just alarming law enforcement but
also marijuana advocates.

Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, a national marijuana
advocacy group, points to the spread of indoor cultivation in San
Mateo County as a natural outgrowth of a local and federal law
enforcement crackdown on cannabis.

"If you want criminal gangs moving in next door to grow marijuana, if
you want to make those criminals unbelievably rich, and if you want to
guarantee that marijuana becomes more potent, current policies are
working perfectly," Mirken said.

"If you think that's crazy," he added, "then it's time for California
to regulate marijuana production, just like we regulate wine."