INDOOR GROWS A LASTING TREND

San Bernardino County recently lost it's reputation as a
methamphetamine manufacturing mecca, but with several recent indoor
marijuana growth busts, a new trend has emerged.

The Sheriff's Department alone has notched 38 busts just this year,
and the majority of the marijuana seizures are taking place in
newer, expensive homes that have been gutted to make way for
sophisticated hydroponics equipment, officials said.

"In the state of California in 2004 there were 54,569 indoor
marijuana plants seized and in 2006 there were 196,994 plants, so
you can see that the number has more than tripled," said Gordon
Taylor, head of the Drug Enforcement Agency's Sacramento office.

Allen St. Pierre, the Washington D.C.-based executive director of
the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or
NORML, said there are several reasons for the increase, not the
least of which is financial.

"Because marijuana is prohibited, it creates a situation where
individuals can make a terrific amount of money on a very small
investment," St. Pierre said. "Plus, you're not all that far from
the epicenter of marijuana dispensaries, so now if they can supply
to the medical marijuana clubs, they can really turn a profit."

St. Pierre also suggests that the American neighborhood is nothing
like it used to be, where everyone knew one another and interacted
on a regular basis. For that reason, he said it has become common
practice to move into a new development where neighbors are
unfamiliar with one another, and they fail to notice that there are
no kids playing in the yard, no one mowing the lawn and no one
coming to and from work on a regular routine.

Taylor agreed, saying that pot producers are "buying into the notion
that they have more anonymity when moving into newer neighborhoods."

With a wealth of new developments in the High Desert, the area has
become attractive to potential marijuana growers, adding to the
prevalence of busts.

St. Pierre also said that the homes tend to be upscale and more
expensive, because it raises the threshold for what authorities
would need to storm the house.

"The police would have to really know what they were doing to invade
the privacy of someone living in a million dollar home. (The pot
growers) could operate in a run down area, and maybe I'm just jaded,
but individuals that live in those communities interact with police
much more frequently, and much more violently," St. Pierre said.

Taylor further suggested that the crack down on outdoor grows in
past decades also pushed growers indoors.

"There's clearly some benefits to growing indoors: You're not going
to be able to see it from the sky and you don't have to worry about
hikers stumbling into your grow, you don't need people living out
there half the year, and you can harvest four times a
year, creating more potent drugs that you can sell for more money,"
Taylor said.

That the marijuana is more potent, St. Pierre explained, comes from
the notion that growers can spend more time manipulating and
tweaking the plant, generally making it stronger.

Taylor also explained that in Northern California a large percentage
of the marijuana seizures have been linked to Asian organized crime
rings, but he could not say whether that was the case locally.

Jodi Miller, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's
Department, said that she has not heard investigators suggest that
we are facing the same problem in our area.

Organized or not, the problem is not likely to go away anytime soon,
unless citizens become actively involved in reporting suspicious
circumstances.

If the air conditioner is always running, if you never see anyone at
the home, or if the windows are always closed, call WeTip at (800)
78-CRIME to make an anonymous report, officials urge.

"All someone needs is three square feet of soil and they can earn
more untaxed cash than the average college graduate makes in a
month, all from illegal cannabis sales," St. Pierre said.

That, Taylor said, is the problem.

"I hope that when people look at this situation they do so with a
wide-angle lens, and they look at the whole picture. Most
law-abiding citizens have saved for years to be able to buy a nice
home and the next thing they know they've got organized crime next
door when they're trying to walk the dog and play with the kids.
This type of thing is unacceptable."