SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Federal prosecutors in California have charged 18 people with operating an extensive marijuana-growing operation by converting Central Valley homes into high-tech pot nurseries.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Casey McEnry says all are from the San Francisco Bay area. Nine were arrested early Thursday on drug and real estate fraud charges. The others remain fugitives.
Federal authorities estimate the operation could bring in nearly $100 million a year.
The charges stem from investigations in 2006-07, when authorities discovered 50 converted homes in Central Valley communities, including Sacramento and Modesto.
The operators punched out walls, installed expensive ventilation and hydration equipment and tapped power lines to grow thousands of plants in the upscale suburban homes.
12 comments:
Obviously this is to the federal authority's advantage. After all, they are getting a ton of money, nearly $100 MILLION a year. When the government sees money, they make sure they get it!
It is definitely a good thing that the members of the marijuana-growing operation were arrested (well, half of them). What they were doing is wrong. Not only were they growing an illegal substance, but they were using private property to do so. The article does not specify their intentions nor does it say whether the homes were occupied or not, but either way, the houses are not the property of the marijuana growers. Since the growers were doing two very wrong things, the prosecutors had every right to crack down on the operation.
100 million dollars a year!!! thats a lot of pot. i want to see how the inside the houses looked like. Having the ability to make that much marijuana is crazy and if they had gotten away with it they would be very rich people now.
lol...this reminded me of the movie pineapple express :P
I totally called it in my last pot-post. That is all.
Marijuana is a very controversial topic. It has a lot to do with with morals V. Money. Personally I would never smoke marijanan but I think it should be legalized because of the mioney we could make off it. It has been proven to have medicinal benefits and its proven not to be addictive. I believe that if we can sell alcohol which gives us liver cancer and cigarettes which gives us lung cancer then we can sell things that gives us the munchies.
i think growing marijuana should be allowed. it would probably help this debt that we have found ourselves in and it is for "medicinal" reasons.
on the other hand a lot of it will probably be grown for illegaal usage. as long as they keep certain restrictions on growing the plants then it should be a thought of as a plausible solution. but people always find their way around the rules though so it's kind of a lose lose situation...
Though California's state government may have ruled to allow a pot-growing industry for "medicinal purposes," the federal law obviously will have to prevail. This is clearly supported by the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, where federal laws and regulations override those of the states. In this case, marijuana is illegal by the federal government. The issue of federal and state authority goes way back. One of the greatest examples is that of the Nullification Crisis/secession of South Carolina, leading to the Civil War. The issue was settled once and for all with the Union victory and states were seen as merely fragments of a whole national government, thus subordinates. That the pot industry will stimulate the economy is quite ridiculous in itself. Though we are in a recession, have we really reached the point of saying drugs are ok, as long as there is revenue? I don't think we're that desperate yet.
100 million dollars a year. think about it. if it were somehow legally tapped and tampered like the government wants it to be..think of the economic boost. whether they legalize it or not is their issue, however, if the gov can regulate it or tax it in some fashion...huge eco boost. also, if they were stemming from investigations 2 plus years ago, why haven't they done anything about it. 50 house!! thats hard to miss!
By legalizing the growth of medicinal marijuana in California to begin with, the government was asking for a situation like this to arise. With marijuana legalized, it is difficult to keep the line drawn between medicinal and illegal uses of marijuana. There is reason for growing medicinal marijuana, I suppose, but the control of illegal activity involving marijuana is going to be difficult to control; in addition, regulation of growing medicinal marijuana is also hard to keep under control. If occurrences like this tend to multiply and increase in comparison to those situations before the legalization of marijuana, the state of California will strongly reconsider the law passed that triggered these outcomes.
If 50 houses are generating 100 million dollars in annual revenue , then think of the rest of the houses that are also producing this "drug" and think of how much money america could recieve if thet could find a way to effectivly tax and sell this product. I think it is stupid that there are countries literaly engaging in civil war when if it was made legal it could help dissolve this problem.
So, I believe that this was bound to happen. Once California made medical marijuana legal, then little plants were bound to start popping up everywhere. I think California did this to themselves. Im sure that this little factory is not the only one in California. Im sure that there are other people that deal out millions of dollars worth of pot, telling people that all they have to do is tell authorities that it is for "medicinal purposes"
The marijuana business must be getting better and better in California. It is not confined in the no-good slums anymore, but also in upscale suburban neighborhoods. Bruce Mirken, director for the Marijuana Policy Project says that "This change moves the federal government dramatically toward respecting scientific and practical reality."
What? Really? I guess it is right. By legally allowing a "selective few" to grow marijuana for medical reasons is a scientific reality, but legalizing marijuana PERIOD is a "practical reality" that there will be people mistreating and bending the law to the way they want it to be.
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