The Pot Growers Next Door
Jacob Sullum | March 30, 2007, 12:30pm
The Associated Press worries about suburbs where "neighbors mind their own business and respect each other's privacy." Why? "These are ideal conditions, it turns out, for growing marijuana." Why should that concern you? The story never says. The closest it comes is a reference to fires in New Hampshire caused by "rows of power strips and spaghetti clusters of extension cords" in grow houses. I await the crackdown on people who have too many computer peripherals or excessively complicated home theater systems.
To encourage nosier neighbors, A.P. offers tips on "how to detect a marijuana greenhouse":
- The windows are often covered and the blinds drawn. There may be excessive condensation around the windows.
- Electrical outlets may be rigged to divert power from neighboring homes.
- The houses are largely unoccupied. People stop by periodically to mow the lawn or do other chores, then leave.
- There are guard dogs, "Keep Out" signs or other security.
- In winter, after a snowfall, the house may be the lone home on the block with no snow on the roof. (Heat from the lights often melts the snow.)
If you want to avoid suspicion, then, never close your blinds (what have you got to hide, anyway?), don't leave your house for extended periods of time, don't buy a dog, don't get a security system, and don't clean the snow off your roof. Otherwise, there may be a knock on your door by heavily armed men, tipped off by a neighbor turned narc.
I'm just kidding. They probably won't knock.
[Thanks to NORML's Allen St. Pierre for the tip.]
Dee | March 30, 2007, 1:04pm | #
I live is South Louisiana there is ALWAYS condensation on our windows. The heat from gorw lights will not melt the snow on anyones roof, that would require a tremendous amount of thermal transfer of heat so much so that no plant could grow in such heat to begin with. Lord forbid you work nights and want to block the sun from your bedroom so you can sleep during the day, then you look like your home all day, don't work and have covered windows, sure to get some attention.
Is it not a given that if its not your property you need to KEEP OFF. Someone posting a sign to tell the not so bright is hardly an indication of a grower. After all they tell people buying peanuts that the jar contains nuts.
All this is just more reason not to live in a neighborhood. Neighbors suck by and large, if I want someone up my ass about my personal business I will call my mom and ask her opinion.
As for power consumption. If your running a few computers in your home, along with a Fridge or box freezer, electric hot water heater, AC, electric stove and washer and dryer your using more juice than a few grow lights will consume.
This is just another example of the impossible trying to be stopped. At what point do you stop and say FUCK these people can grow this plant ANYWHERE. Inside, outside, a closet a rooftop, the woods. Its a fucking plant you morons and one that will grow just about anyplace in the world. What big moral balls you all have to think you can stop a plant from growing.
You can't even keep drugs out of prisons give it up already you lost BADLY and continue to regardless of how many rights you strip from us in your quest for a unobtainable drug free society. Excuse me the quest for the illicit drug markets demise, the legal ones are just fine and dandy so long as the right people get paid for the candy.
I still like the overgrow the government idea. Spread the seeds and watch it grow like the week it is. If it is in every ditch lets see them get rid of that.
Also where in the hell do they get their numbers from anyway. $4000 a plant? Indoors? that must be one hell of a grow room to produce that much per plant inside. Exactly how many people read $4000 and a plant and start to think about the profit if they do it. Farmers don't make that much off an acre of crop much less one plant.
kevrob | March 30, 2007, 4:42pm | #
I think the analogy to homebrewing makes sense. Some people would grow their own as a hobby. Homebrewers have contests, prizes, and the best sometimes "go pro." TWC, please correct me, but it's the same for home vintners, isn't it? Still, even the most avid afficianados of zymurgy still drink other brewers' beer.
Some years ago my landlord rented out the apartment upstairs from mine to a college-aged fellow. The first few weeks he was there he was in and out at all hours, and received guests on an irregular schedule. I figured this was just typical college-boy behavior. The young man may have been away from the supervision of his parents or dormitory staff for the first time in his life, and I figured the normal thing would happen. He'd make lousy midterm grades, Mama and/or Papa would read him the riot act, and he'd either straighten out or flunk, either result relieving me of the nuisance of a noisy neighbor. I started to get worried when weird-looking folks, one of whom I recognized as a local street person, started ringing my doorbell looking for Joe College. Either these types couldn't remember JC's apt. #, or the upstairs doorbell was broken, and I was a convenient alternative. I did complain about that to my landlord.
The situation resolved itself early one morning, when someone on the street hurled a paving stone through the bay window of the upstairs flat. My landlord told me that Our Young Scholar was either dealing something, or had been a heavy customer of somebody who unwisely gave credit. After the police arrived to deal with the chaos, the young man was evicted. Seems he had flunked out of another area college after doing too many drugs. His mama kicked him out of the house, but since he was already on probation, methinks for possession, he had to have someplace to live. So Mater
who was some kind of therapist or counselor! - leased the apartment for Junior, and enrolled him in the state U that's in walking distance of our building, all on the proviso that the kid would quit the stuff. This darling family neglected to tell my landlord about any of this.
There was a rumor that, prior to the window-breaking incident, JC and his friends invited some supposed dealers into his apartment, only to be robbed at knifepoint by them. When the police were called about that, some lame story was given out that didn't quite match the neighbors' reports. My theory was that the fellow who smashed the window may have been part of their little buying club, now out some cash, and with no dope to show for it, either. Whether they planned to go into business for themselves, I have no clue, but it wouldn't have been impossible, though a dealer who can't control what he uses probably shouldn't be a part of the enterprise.
Kevin
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