COUNTIES DECLARE WAR ON POT

Arrests And Drug House Busts Are on the Rise

The war on drugs is often so secretive that arrests are not always
made public. Sometimes, the court system does not create dockets for
them. Their search warrants are sealed by judges.

The stakes are that high.

"We've always had grow houses but nothing like now. Every jurisdiction
in the state is getting nailed -- it's a new phenomenon," said
Charlotte County Chief Deputy Bill Cameron. "It has become almost epidemic."

While the problem of grow houses -- homes turned into sophisticated
indoor marijuana gardens -- and drugs is certainly statewide, the
emphasis on the crime in Southwest Florida has resulted in an
eye-opening number of raids and arrests in the past few months.

Based on available court documents, five grow houses and six drug
houses were raided just in North Port since August. Some other raids
there have not been revealed. There have been 12 grow house busts in
Charlotte County this year -- compared to three last year -- two in
DeSoto County and four in Hardee County.

And those numbers don't reveal the whole picture, according to
Sarasota County Sheriff's spokesperson Lt. Chuck Lesaltato, who says
some busts are not widely reported for fear of endangering potential
informants or compromising another investigation.

"When we make arrests, we may obtain intelligence which leads to other
houses, and other arrests," Lesaltato said in an interview last month.
"We'd love nothing more than to publicize these, but by doing so we
put lives in danger."

A grow house can have three harvests a year, and can make its owner as
much as $6 million a year.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said that each potted
marijuana plant has street value of $4,000. A house can hold between
300 to 500 plants, producing up to $2 million per harvest.

"The (price of the) house is just a cost of doing underworld
business," said Bob Carpenter, public information officer for the
Charlotte County Sheriff's Office.

"Someone can put just a little down on a home here and if they get
busted, they haven't lost a lot," Cameron said.

Close to 30 percent of all arrests in Sarasota County during the month
of September were directly related to drugs, according to a Sarasota
County database.

Drug houses have been around for a long time. However, grow houses are
new to the area, according to North Port Lt. Detective Kevin Sullivan.

Spokespersons from North Port, Sarasota, DeSoto, Hardee and Charlotte
counties, say they too are keeping up with them and shutting them down.

"We realize they have them in surrounding counties and we have an eye
open for them here in DeSoto," said DeSoto County Sheriff Vernon Keen.
"We encourage the public, if they see anything that indicates possible
a grow house, to give us a call."

Although exact numbers are unknown, information obtained from various
sources in Sarasota and Charlotte counties point to about 30 grow
houses having been closed since January.

Lesaltato said that the sheriff's Narcotic Task Force has closed 11
grow houses in North Port alone.

"The real estate market is driving people to rent houses, and the
owners of these homes are not really checking out the renter's
qualifications," Lesaltato said. "There are more vacant homes in North
Port, which is why most of them might be located there."

Given the low housing prices, North Port and DeSoto and Charlotte
counties are areas that are conducive to setting up grow houses
because there are so many rural areas that allow operators of grow
houses to go undetected for a long time, Estrada said.

Sullivan said grow houses are hard to find because the owners and
renters stay low-key, and do not attract attention to themselves.

"Usually, no one is home. Someone will check the house once or twice a
week to make sure all the systems inside are working," Sullivan said.
"There are no 'livable conditions.'"

The house is usually torn apart, according to Carpenter. He said that
often the walls, ceilings and carpeting are removed and that false
walls are built to hide from police and neighbors.

"The owner or renter who lives in Miami can deny what is happening in
the house, as they claim they do not live there," Carpenter said.
"This makes prosecuting them difficult."

In the last five search warrants issued in North Port, no one was
arrested. The owners lived in the Miami area.

"The amount (number of grow houses) we have found so far shows we are
catching and stopping them," Sullivan said.

Cameron said Charlotte County is making grow house operators a
priority.

"Our goal is to make it so operators look at us as too hot, and they
will go somewhere else," Cameron said.