ER DOCTOR, HUSBAND POST BONDS ON MARIJUANA CHARGES

PASCAGOULA -- A Gulfport emergency-room doctor and her common-law
husband have bonded out of the Adult Detention Center after agents
with the Narcotics Task Force of Jackson County arrested the [redacted]
pair on their return from a vacation in Mexico.

Sgt. Curtis Spiers, commander of the task force, said agents met
[redacted] as they got off the plane at
Gulfport International Airport just before Christmas.

"They had no idea," Spiers said Monday referring to the airport
arrests.

[redacted] were both released from the ADC after posting a
$25,000 bond each on one count each of cultivation of marijuana.

If convicted, they each could face up to $1 million in fines and 30
years in prison.

On Dec. 12, officers raided the home shared by [redacted].

During the raid, officers seized 18 marijuana plants, each more than
six feet tall, according to a news release announcing the seizure.

One plant can produce about 2.2 pounds of marijuana each year, which
could have accounted for more than 36 kilos in [redacted]
operations, Spiers added Monday.

Additionally, according to the release, officers found "implements
used to enhance (the marijuana plant's) growth from a greenhouse on
the property as well as a substantial number of marijuana and drug
paraphernalia from their home."

The release, which came out the day following the arrest, said Task
Force officers had been investigating [redacted] for two years.

At the time of the raid, Spiers alleged that [redacted] were
engaged in hydroponic growing operations, where the plant is grown in
water rather than soil. He said hydroponic systems have the twin
benefits of being more difficult to detect because they are indoor
systems, and the growing environment can be controlled. Because
growers can control the climate and growing environment, the
concentration of THC, which is the active ingredient of marijuana, is
greater in hydroponic homegrown plants than in field-grown plants.

Mexican marijuana, Spiers said, contains about 4 percent THC.
Hydroponic marijuana, he said, contains 17 to 20 percent THC.

As a result, he said, the hydroponic plant is costlier on the street,
going for $4,000 a pound compared to $700 a pound for Mexican.

"This is the preferred way to grow or produce marijuana," he said at
the time of the raids.