MARIJUANA GROWERS TEND POTENT KIND OF POT

Hennepin County narcotics officers are busting more home-grown
marijuana operations -- sometimes in upscale suburbs.

One reason for increased home production is the decreased flow of
high-grade pot from Canada since border controls tightened up after
the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, said Sheriff Rich Stanek.

Another factor is more indoor cultivation of higher-grade marijuana
that's is up to six times more potent than that sold years ago, he
said. Higher potency raises dealer profits and also may increase
addictiveness, a drug expert said.

Hennepin County's biggest bust, which reached into Anoka County,
occurred at Bloomington and Blaine homes owned by brothers Derek and
Jon Stoa.

Police seized 1,250 marijuana plants with a $4.8 million street value
in raids at the properties, county records show. More plants were
found in a room hidden behind a bookcase in a barn near Barnum,
Minn., that the brothers owned.

If convicted on federal drug charges, the Stoas could forfeit $1
million in real estate.

This fall, narcotics agents confiscated another 1,100 marijuana
plants worth more than $4.4 million from an upscale home in a
west-metro suburb. The suspects had stolen electricity for growing
lights by chopping through the basement wall and digging underground
to tap a utility power line, Stanek said.

In dozens of busts since January 2006, Hennepin deputies and the West
Metro and Southwest Hennepin Drug Task Forces have seized:

Sixty guns.

About 6,900 marijuana plants and 330 pounds of processed pot with a
street value of about $29 million.

Real estate valued in excess of $1.37 million.

$801,000 in cash and bank accounts.

Lights and growing equipment worth $370,000.

Vehicles worth $220,000.

High Potency, Higher Price

Stanek said well-armed SWAT teams are used to bust indoor pot
operations because "these high-grade marijuana growers are protecting
these crops at any cost."

Indoor pot can be grown faster and has a higher content of the illicit
drug's main active chemical, THC. That can increase one plant's value
to as much as $5,000, compared to $300 for an outdoor plant, said
sheriff's spokeswoman Kathryn Janicek.

In the past decade, marijuana has sent more people into Twin Cities
addiction treatment programs than any other illicit drug, said Carol
Falkowski, author of semiannual reports tracking hospital drug and
alcohol admissions.

The more potent pot, like other stronger drugs, "can hasten the
progression from occasional use to regular use to addiction," she said.

In 2006, marijuana was the principal drug problem for 18.3 percent of
area hospitals' drug admissions, followed by cocaine at 14 percent,
she said. (Alcohol accounted for 48 percent of admissions, she said.)

Hennepin County efforts mirror crackdowns across the country.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, federal agents have
confiscated more than 400,000 marijuana plants with a potential value
of $6.4 billion so far in 2007. That compares with 270,000 plants
seized in 2006.

It took 20 minutes to break through the barricaded basement door at
one of the Stoa brothers' Bloomington homes, Janicek said. The Stoas
had no legal income that would support lifestyles that included
several lake homes near Barnum, which prosecutors are seeking to have
forfeited because they allegedly were bought with drug money, she said.