News (Media Awareness Project) - US HI: Chasing Smoke: Part Two-Growers Persist, Agents Pursue In Duel Of Tactics |
| Title: | US HI: Chasing Smoke: Part Two-Growers Persist, Agents Pursue In Duel Of Tactics |
| Published On: | 2000-04-03 |
| Source: | Honolulu Advertiser (HI) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-09-04 22:57:12 |
GROWERS PERSIST, AGENTS PURSUE IN DUEL OF TACTICS
PUNA DISTRICT, Hawaii Hes 62 years old, his eyes wise with experience
about the ways police can find marijuana growers like himself.
He didnt survive Hawaiis war on marijuana for this long without learning a
few things, without learning how to adapt.
In the early days of what was then called Operation Green Harvest, it was
not difficult for police helicopters to spot acres of marijuana plants, some
more than 6 feet tall. Growers caught with several pounds of marijuana on
their property found their homes and land seized and sold at auction.
As local, state and federal narcotics agents got smarter and more effective,
the grower streamlined his operation. Today, he reduces his risk by sticking
to small, quick-growing plants that are easy to hide and to move.
And he sprinkles them over other peoples property to avoid jeopardizing his
own land.
He could make more money growing marijuana during the main season from
spring to fall, when long days in the sun can coax a single large plant to
produce a pound of pakalolo worth a couple of thousand dollars.
But sometimes the months spent grooming a crop never pay off because a
ripper steals it just before harvest. Instead, the grower sticks
exclusively to the winter short season, when pressure from police and
rippers isnt so high.
I dont like the summer, he said. Its hot. You have to haul water all
over the place. The cops are looking for it everywhere.
Still, he expects losses and plans accordingly: He writes off one-third of
his crop to pests, disease and rippers. One-third could be discovered by
police. The remaining third is his profit.
If all goes well, he can take a plant from seed to finished product in 90
days. Each 2-foot-high plant will yield about one-quarter ounce of
marijuana, or about $100.
Growing in the short season still means hiding plants under foliage. And
with the population of Puna doubling in the past 20 years, he worries about
residents getting suspicious of him carrying water and gardening supplies
around on their property.
There are too many residents now, too many copters, he said. Its too
hard to go into an area two or three times a week undetected. People start
wondering about the guy who keeps going up the dirt road in the early
morning or the late afternoon.
When he hears police helicopters near his plants, or somebody starts
clearing brush to build a house, its time to find a new spot and move on.
Youve been pulling pounds (of marijuana) out of this plot of land. And
now, after 20 years, they start to develop it, he said. Ive spent all
night running around putting pots full of plants into plastic garbage bags.
He usually keeps 50 to 60 plants growing in various places, far below the
1,000-plant level that draws the attention of U.S. Attorney Steve Alm in
Honolulu and calls for mandatory federal sentences.
The grower walks along his Puna property and pulls back foliage to reveal
eight plants in different stages of growth, representing different
varieties.
Even if he were caught growing on his own land, 10 plants or so would mean
probation, police said.
But in the underground economy of the Big Island, where money can be tight,
even a few pounds of marijuana each season is worth enough in barter to meet
most of his needs.
You can get your car fixed, he said. You can get a new toaster. Its good
for services like gardening or housework. Its good for whatever you need.
FROM FUNGUS TO 'RIPPERS'
Before he moved to Puna, one 27-year-old grower had an indoor operation on
Maui that came with its own set of problems.
He lost crops to fungus, white flies and spider mites that thrived in
confined spaces. He worried about attracting the attention of the utility
company by constantly running heaters, lights and fans, which exercise the
plants.
Growing outdoors in Puna, hes been awakened in the middle of the night by
rippers who tear out the plants for their own use. Once they figured out he
was growing, they returned every two weeks, sometimes in the middle of the
day, as more plants matured.
The rippers are way more effective than Green Harvest, he said.
He said he likes the science of marijuana growing and enjoys experimenting
with varieties of quick-growing, potent strains.
He picked up a thick, deep-green bud of cannabis sativa, a strain called
the haze, and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, unleashing the
rich smell of marijuana.
This is your working high, he said. You smoke this during the day when
you still need to get things done.
Now this is special, he said, lifting a brittle, brown bud. He says it is
cannabis indica, a strained called the blueberry. Call it the pau hana
high. You only smoke this at the end of the day, when youre around good
friends, he said, because youre going to be flat on your back, and you
probably wont be able to move.
After five years of trial and error, despite dodging police, rippers and
curious neighbors, this is actually the most successful Ive been growing
marijuana, he said.
CASUALTY OF THE WAR
To this day, Jim Good cant roll a joint.
It strikes him as funny, because marijuana cost him his land and the house
he spent six years building.
Good never considered himself a hard-core marijuana dealer. He sold
lower-quality shake, the leaves of the marijuana plant that surround the
more potent and profitable buds.
But in 1985, police raided the old sugar plantation house that Good had
rebuilt in the Puna Districts Orchidland Estates and found almost 80 pounds
of shake, conservatively worth $8,000. Hawaiis war on marijuana was nearing
its high point, and Good became one of its casualties.
His experience is a reminder of marijuanas glory days on the Big Island and
the punishment that sometimes came with it. As one grower said, Pakalolos
been a wonderful thing, and its caused a lot of pain.
Good was unprepared for the pervasiveness of the marijuana industry when he
answered a cousins invitation to move to Puna in 1976.
The availability was extraordinary, he said. Marijuana was as common as
coffee and doughnuts on a breakfast table. Youd go to any party and see
bags of pot sitting out. People would have parties and compete to see whose
pakalolo was the best.
Good, then 32, made cabinets and worked in construction. But for an
investment as little as $50, he could buy a pound of Puna-grown shake, mail
it to the Mainland and make as much as $2,400.
The joke was that the post office in Pahoa (southern Punas main business
center) was so contaminated with marijuana, they couldnt bring in search
dogs because the whole place smelled, Good said.
From 1983 to 1987, Operation Green Harvest seized more plants on the Big
Island ---2,479,923---than anywhere else in the country. It also resulted in
3,031 marijuana arrests.
DRUGS, MORALITY
Marijuana arrests were so common that they carried little social stigma,
Good said. But he still wrestled with guilt.
I consider myself a moral person, Good said. I had to question how do I
feel selling marijuana, how do I feel about dealing drugs.
He said he traveled to Nicaragua each year to help people in response to
the atrocities of the Reagan administration. He said it helped his
conscience that the money he made selling marijuana built a kitchen for a
Nicaraguan day care center and bought lumber that Nicaraguan women used to
make furniture.
Then on Jan. 31, 1985, police acting on an informants tip searched Goods
Orchidland house and charged him with promotion of marijuana. He was
sentenced to one year in jail, a $1,000 fine and 500 hours of community
service. He served the jail sentence at night and refurbished the floors of
the old Hilo Police Station by day.
By August 1989, four years after his arrest, Good said, he no longer was
selling marijuana.
He was living in a refugee camp in Nicaragua in which everyone had lost
homes and family to war. Thats when Good got word that authorities had
seized his house and 4-acre lot in Hawaii.
I thought that I was still probably the wealthiest person in this town in
Nicaragua, Good said.
Good bought his house in 1979 for $2,400, tore it apart piece by piece and
spent the next six years redesigning and customizing it with recycled
materials. Once in the hands of the government, the house and land sold at
auction for $240,000.
Today, Good lives in the remains of the old Hakalau School, which he moved
to a 1-acre parcel in Punas Hawaiian Paradise Park. He took the old school
apart and rebuilt it into another gorgeous home made from recycled
materials. The frames of old blackboards serve as picture windows. Girders
from an old Army barracks run across the living room ceiling as exposed
beams. Slabs of lava provide an open-air shower with live plants and shower
heads for two people.
Good, 56, has a thriving flooring business, and he said he is over the
bitterness he once felt when he drove by his old house in nearby Orchidland.
But my attitude toward marijuana has not changed one iota, Good said. It
was not something that was an integral part of my life, not ever. I just got
caught and paid a heavy price.
PUNA DISTRICT, Hawaii Hes 62 years old, his eyes wise with experience
about the ways police can find marijuana growers like himself.
He didnt survive Hawaiis war on marijuana for this long without learning a
few things, without learning how to adapt.
In the early days of what was then called Operation Green Harvest, it was
not difficult for police helicopters to spot acres of marijuana plants, some
more than 6 feet tall. Growers caught with several pounds of marijuana on
their property found their homes and land seized and sold at auction.
As local, state and federal narcotics agents got smarter and more effective,
the grower streamlined his operation. Today, he reduces his risk by sticking
to small, quick-growing plants that are easy to hide and to move.
And he sprinkles them over other peoples property to avoid jeopardizing his
own land.
He could make more money growing marijuana during the main season from
spring to fall, when long days in the sun can coax a single large plant to
produce a pound of pakalolo worth a couple of thousand dollars.
But sometimes the months spent grooming a crop never pay off because a
ripper steals it just before harvest. Instead, the grower sticks
exclusively to the winter short season, when pressure from police and
rippers isnt so high.
I dont like the summer, he said. Its hot. You have to haul water all
over the place. The cops are looking for it everywhere.
Still, he expects losses and plans accordingly: He writes off one-third of
his crop to pests, disease and rippers. One-third could be discovered by
police. The remaining third is his profit.
If all goes well, he can take a plant from seed to finished product in 90
days. Each 2-foot-high plant will yield about one-quarter ounce of
marijuana, or about $100.
Growing in the short season still means hiding plants under foliage. And
with the population of Puna doubling in the past 20 years, he worries about
residents getting suspicious of him carrying water and gardening supplies
around on their property.
There are too many residents now, too many copters, he said. Its too
hard to go into an area two or three times a week undetected. People start
wondering about the guy who keeps going up the dirt road in the early
morning or the late afternoon.
When he hears police helicopters near his plants, or somebody starts
clearing brush to build a house, its time to find a new spot and move on.
Youve been pulling pounds (of marijuana) out of this plot of land. And
now, after 20 years, they start to develop it, he said. Ive spent all
night running around putting pots full of plants into plastic garbage bags.
He usually keeps 50 to 60 plants growing in various places, far below the
1,000-plant level that draws the attention of U.S. Attorney Steve Alm in
Honolulu and calls for mandatory federal sentences.
The grower walks along his Puna property and pulls back foliage to reveal
eight plants in different stages of growth, representing different
varieties.
Even if he were caught growing on his own land, 10 plants or so would mean
probation, police said.
But in the underground economy of the Big Island, where money can be tight,
even a few pounds of marijuana each season is worth enough in barter to meet
most of his needs.
You can get your car fixed, he said. You can get a new toaster. Its good
for services like gardening or housework. Its good for whatever you need.
FROM FUNGUS TO 'RIPPERS'
Before he moved to Puna, one 27-year-old grower had an indoor operation on
Maui that came with its own set of problems.
He lost crops to fungus, white flies and spider mites that thrived in
confined spaces. He worried about attracting the attention of the utility
company by constantly running heaters, lights and fans, which exercise the
plants.
Growing outdoors in Puna, hes been awakened in the middle of the night by
rippers who tear out the plants for their own use. Once they figured out he
was growing, they returned every two weeks, sometimes in the middle of the
day, as more plants matured.
The rippers are way more effective than Green Harvest, he said.
He said he likes the science of marijuana growing and enjoys experimenting
with varieties of quick-growing, potent strains.
He picked up a thick, deep-green bud of cannabis sativa, a strain called
the haze, and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, unleashing the
rich smell of marijuana.
This is your working high, he said. You smoke this during the day when
you still need to get things done.
Now this is special, he said, lifting a brittle, brown bud. He says it is
cannabis indica, a strained called the blueberry. Call it the pau hana
high. You only smoke this at the end of the day, when youre around good
friends, he said, because youre going to be flat on your back, and you
probably wont be able to move.
After five years of trial and error, despite dodging police, rippers and
curious neighbors, this is actually the most successful Ive been growing
marijuana, he said.
CASUALTY OF THE WAR
To this day, Jim Good cant roll a joint.
It strikes him as funny, because marijuana cost him his land and the house
he spent six years building.
Good never considered himself a hard-core marijuana dealer. He sold
lower-quality shake, the leaves of the marijuana plant that surround the
more potent and profitable buds.
But in 1985, police raided the old sugar plantation house that Good had
rebuilt in the Puna Districts Orchidland Estates and found almost 80 pounds
of shake, conservatively worth $8,000. Hawaiis war on marijuana was nearing
its high point, and Good became one of its casualties.
His experience is a reminder of marijuanas glory days on the Big Island and
the punishment that sometimes came with it. As one grower said, Pakalolos
been a wonderful thing, and its caused a lot of pain.
Good was unprepared for the pervasiveness of the marijuana industry when he
answered a cousins invitation to move to Puna in 1976.
The availability was extraordinary, he said. Marijuana was as common as
coffee and doughnuts on a breakfast table. Youd go to any party and see
bags of pot sitting out. People would have parties and compete to see whose
pakalolo was the best.
Good, then 32, made cabinets and worked in construction. But for an
investment as little as $50, he could buy a pound of Puna-grown shake, mail
it to the Mainland and make as much as $2,400.
The joke was that the post office in Pahoa (southern Punas main business
center) was so contaminated with marijuana, they couldnt bring in search
dogs because the whole place smelled, Good said.
From 1983 to 1987, Operation Green Harvest seized more plants on the Big
Island ---2,479,923---than anywhere else in the country. It also resulted in
3,031 marijuana arrests.
DRUGS, MORALITY
Marijuana arrests were so common that they carried little social stigma,
Good said. But he still wrestled with guilt.
I consider myself a moral person, Good said. I had to question how do I
feel selling marijuana, how do I feel about dealing drugs.
He said he traveled to Nicaragua each year to help people in response to
the atrocities of the Reagan administration. He said it helped his
conscience that the money he made selling marijuana built a kitchen for a
Nicaraguan day care center and bought lumber that Nicaraguan women used to
make furniture.
Then on Jan. 31, 1985, police acting on an informants tip searched Goods
Orchidland house and charged him with promotion of marijuana. He was
sentenced to one year in jail, a $1,000 fine and 500 hours of community
service. He served the jail sentence at night and refurbished the floors of
the old Hilo Police Station by day.
By August 1989, four years after his arrest, Good said, he no longer was
selling marijuana.
He was living in a refugee camp in Nicaragua in which everyone had lost
homes and family to war. Thats when Good got word that authorities had
seized his house and 4-acre lot in Hawaii.
I thought that I was still probably the wealthiest person in this town in
Nicaragua, Good said.
Good bought his house in 1979 for $2,400, tore it apart piece by piece and
spent the next six years redesigning and customizing it with recycled
materials. Once in the hands of the government, the house and land sold at
auction for $240,000.
Today, Good lives in the remains of the old Hakalau School, which he moved
to a 1-acre parcel in Punas Hawaiian Paradise Park. He took the old school
apart and rebuilt it into another gorgeous home made from recycled
materials. The frames of old blackboards serve as picture windows. Girders
from an old Army barracks run across the living room ceiling as exposed
beams. Slabs of lava provide an open-air shower with live plants and shower
heads for two people.
Good, 56, has a thriving flooring business, and he said he is over the
bitterness he once felt when he drove by his old house in nearby Orchidland.
But my attitude toward marijuana has not changed one iota, Good said. It
was not something that was an integral part of my life, not ever. I just got
caught and paid a heavy price.
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