MARIJUANA IN SUBURBS A LUCRATIVE ENTERPRISE

The homes looked like countless others lining suburbia's streets and
pictured in Southern California real estate brochures - except the
shades were always drawn, the garbage bins were empty, and no one
ever seemed to be home.

The nearly million-dollar houses, scattered across the Inland Valley
on well-manicured streets and cul-de-sacs named after trees and
Spanish landmarks, shared a secret.

One by one, they had been turned into factories, all with the same
hallmarks: high-tech lighting and watering systems, complicated - and
usually illegal and dangerous - power hookups, and the isolated
comings and goings of people who clearly didn't live in the homes,
but instead seemed to be ... checking on something.

Something green, leafy and illegal.

Today's marijuana mills are in some of the region's finer homes, from
a four-bedroom split-level in Diamond Bar to an upscale Apple Valley
home worth $650,000. The operations are a far cry from the backwoods
greenhouses and underground grow bunkers often favored by suburban
pot cultivators. The relative opulence of the houses is a clear sign
that today's growers have changed their tactics and will invest a lot
into masking a highly lucrative business.

In June alone, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department's
narcotics division seized a total of 4,416 plants with a potential
value of $15 million, making it one of their busiest months this year.

Though the pace of the busts slowed as the summer wore on, two recent
incidents served as reminders of the ongoing crackdown:

On Sept. 10, members of a drug task force shot and killed one man and
launched a manhunt for two others after they discovered an outdoor
marijuana farm near Lytle Creek containing about 3,000 plants worth
up to $9 million.

On Sept. 12, authorities found 700 marijuana plants with a potential
value of $2.5 million in an Eastvale home whose residents had moved
in just six months earlier. Three men, all of Asian descent and from
out of state, were arrested in connection with the grow operation.

"This has turned into the next drug trend," said Art Marinello,
special agent supervisor of the San Bernardino County West End
Narcotic Enforcement Team.

The near-weekly reports of major pot busts are unlikely to end
anytime soon, as detectives keen on finding large-scale marijuana
cultivation sites continue probing informants and investigating leads.

A common thread law-enforcement agencies have found as they start to
connect the dots is that gangs, many of them Asian, are behind the
grow houses. They are likely linked to a larger Asian crime ring that
uses the proceeds from pot sales to pay for other activities.

The list of those arrested in connection with the pot busts is
riddled with Asian surnames, and in the grow houses where no arrests
take place, detectives are finding operating schedules scribbled in
Chinese characters.

"I can't say they're all connected," said Lt. Greg Garland of the San
Bernardino County Marijuana Eradication Team. "But for (San
Bernardino County), we have a couple of different groups, Asian-type
groups, working different indoor grows."

One suspect in an Apple Valley raid recently fled the country to
China, Garland said, and investigators have also found evidence of
money transfers made by other suspects to China.

Garland said some recent immigrants are exploited when they are asked
to run the grow houses in exchange for money and housing. Sometimes
the newcomers are asked to put their names on real estate deals
without understanding the criminal activities that will be based
there, Garland said.

If the grow operations are linked to a larger crime syndicate with
ties abroad, then pot probably is just one aspect of their business.

"Gangs will have meth operations, cocaine smuggling operations,
heroin operations. The pot is just one part of it," said Jackie Long,
special agent supervisor for the California Department of Justice.
"They are a diversified company."

But the indoor operations aren't limited to Asian criminals.

"It runs the gamut. The whole thing is driven by profit and greed,"
Marinello said. "I don't think it has anything to do with nation of origin."

Big Business

Make no mistake about it, pot is big business.

A majority of the nation's cannabis cultivation is in the Western
states. California leads the pack, producing more than a third of the
nation's total harvest, about $13.8 billion worth, according to a
report released last year by a marijuana public policy analyst.

The report by Jon Gettman, a marijuana reform activist, contends that
pot in the U.S., a $35 billion industry, tops corn, soybeans and hay,
the nation's largest-grossing legal cash crops.

On a case-by-case basis, it takes a substantial chunk of capital to
even start a grow operation. There's plenty of overhead, starting
with buying the house and equipment needed to set up the grow, and
going all the way down to paying the people who make occasional
visits to fertilize the plants.

"It takes some pretty big money to start up one of these," said Garland.

A mid-sized grow house holds about $5,000 worth of equipment, from
irrigation systems that run the hydroponic operation to charcoal
filters that eliminate the plants' odor. Some houses are dedicated
entirely to the cultivation of the profitable drug, with nary a chair
or kitchen towel in sight.

Sgt. Mike Arriaga of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Narcotics Unit
said the operations are set up by fairly sophisticated people.

"These are not kids. They're electricians, dry wallers, people who -
for lack of a better term - are entrepreneurs in the
marijuana-growing business," he said. "They have lights, water,
timers ... to create a season, fooling Mother Nature into believing
it is growing season. They're fooling the plants into believing it is
time to go."

They may have savvy grow skills, but their neighbors are also
becoming more savvy in detecting grow houses. Garland said that as
marijuana busts have increased and become publicized, the number of
tips to police about possible grow houses also has grown. The
frequency of the busts has raised public awareness, helping residents
spot grow-site clues that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Still, it's not easy, said Marinello, who has been working in
narcotics for a decade. Those running the operations are discreet;
they don't hold loud parties or give their neighbors any other
reasons to complain to the authorities.

"The exterior of the house is usually maintained so the neighbors are
happy. The grass is green, the lawn is cut. They don't draw attention
to themselves," Marinello said. "This is a business, and they run it
like a business."

They're also fooling the electric company.

To keep the lamps and timers going, most growers use an electrical
bypass device, often stealing thousands of dollars from the power company.

Such thefts pose their own hazards.

Haphazard wiring made one Chino grow house catch fire, exposing its
illegal operation to startled firefighters. At another Chino Hills
grow house, a full-sized bathroom became an electricity-theft hub,
with wayward wires and surge protectors dangling like ornaments from
the ceiling. Detectives said the setup was a fire waiting to happen.

"They're not stupid people. A lot of them are educated," Marinello
said. "But they're so into marijuana, it's like all they live for."

Taking Shelter

Open the front door to a marijuana grow house, and if the smell
doesn't knock you off your feet, the plant's active ingredient, THC,
will stick to your skin and stop you in your tracks.

Police take it in stride, however, as what once was unusual and
alarming has become routine.

After a grow house is spotted, investigators arrive and, as if
readying to wash a sinkful of dishes, pull on latex gloves to weed
through evidence. To break up the monotony, they make pot jokes.

It's a very different scene than the one a few years ago, when indoor
grow houses were a relative rarity. Every once in awhile, police
would find someone growing weed illegally indoors, maybe a few plants
in a garage or basement. Most of their efforts were focused on
dismantling big outdoor operations like ones found in the hills of
Big Bear Valley and Lytle Creek.

But growers are finding it increasingly lucrative to head indoors,
where special lighting and easy-to-find hydroponic equipment can make
plants produce buds four or five times a year.

The place to do it seems to be suburbia, where police presence often
is minimal and residents are much more likely to push strollers than
drugs. It's an environment that's ideal for growers, as neighbors
tend to keep to themselves, and there's less chance the pot will get
stolen, if it's even discovered in the first place.

Growers also go to great lengths to mask their operations. Some have
installed lights near windows to fool passers-by, then put drywall
behind the window to separate the grow operation from the deceptive lighting.

The people behind one Apple Valley grow house built a faux wall near
the entryway so that when the door was opened, people outside
couldn't see the illegal activity inside.

When they are uncovered, grow operations can take most of a day to
dismantle. In cases where electricity is stolen, the homes that once
sheltered the green plants quickly become red-tagged and deemed uninhabitable.

Depending on the agencies handling the investigations, the house can
go through either federal or state forfeiture. Forfeiture laws vary
nationwide; under California law, the homeowner must be convicted for
the house to be confiscated.

The people arrested in connection with the grow houses are rarely the
homeowners. Some are renters, and some are employees of the operation leader.

"The clever ones, the real money guys, they hire people to take care
of their stuff," Marinello said.

But the surge in suburban grow houses does not mean an end to outdoor
operations, or that they are only limited to upscale communities.

Aside from the Lytle Creek bust earlier this month, which involved an
outdoor grow, five people were arrested on July 16 in Phelan after
authorities found a hydroponics operation with 250 plants in a bunker
under a mobile home.

Garland said outdoor marijuana fields are usually discovered in the
summer, when the marijuana planted in April begins to mature. The
Lytle Creek plants, worth between $6 million and $9 million, were
mature and ready for the harvest.

Cultivating outdoors creates a whole different batch of problems,
Garland said. He said in most outdoor grows, one or two people camp
in the remote areas to make sure things run smoothly. Sometimes
they'll kill the animals that eat the plants.

"They'll put down fertilizer, which gets into the water stream,"
Garland said. "The biggest thing about the outdoor grows is they go
into the remote areas, the forests, and do lots and lots of damage."

War Rages On

Meanwhile, state and federal agencies continue to fight what they
admit is a losing battle with pot producers.

Despite the effort to curb it, federal estimates show nationwide
marijuana production has increased tenfold over the past 25 years,
from 2.2 million pounds in 1981 to 22 million pounds in 2006.

Long, the California Department of Justice agent supervisor, admits
the government is a long way from taming the problem. The
government's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting seized nearly 1.7
million plants in 2006, a record year. Long expects to break that
record this year.

"It's not even close to being under control," he said. "It's out of control."

The numbers are ammunition for those who favor legalizing marijuana
or an overhaul of current drug policies.

The war on drugs isn't winnable, said Margaret Dooley, acting
director of the Southern California Drug Policy Alliance, who
contends the problem should be tackled with a public health approach
that addresses drug addiction.

"What we've had for many years is a drug war that does more harm than
good," Dooley said. "We spend so much on enforcement that addiction
is starved for funding."

The grow houses sprouting in neighborhoods not normally targeted by
police show that demand for pot is and will remain high, Dooley said.

"There should be some way to regulate and allow a legitimate
dispensary," she said. "I would say you can continue to go after
these grow houses, but they will change their strategy.

"It's a losing battle."