This ain't your father's marijuana

Looks like a normal house, right? But click here to see what the inside looks like.

It's called a grow house and they are popping up all over Florida, producing potent strains of marijuana that Sen. Steve Oelrich, R-Cross Creek, says is nearly as strong as hashish.

"This is not some hippies in the woods," Oelrich told the Senate Criminal Justice committee earlier today.

The panel passed his bill (SB 309) to create a new felony category for owners of grow houses and says that any operation with 25 plants or more represents evidence that it is intended for distribution. Similar legislation is moving through the House and is backed by Attorney General Bill McCollum.

Comments

and next we'll go after all the fornicators

So it is NOT a felony to have 24 plants... hmmmm, I thought pot was illegal, to have, use or sell...

5:54-
it isn't safe to blog while you've got the munchies.

[Don Mott]

With all of the problems this state has Mr. GOP Oerlich wants to crowd our already overcrowded prisons with people who are growing a natural herb that is much less dangerous than alcohol? How about tackling some real problems like education, the welfare of the elderly, taxes, insurance etc. People who grow pot aren't robbing anybody, the legislature is with this misguided waste of time.

INSURANCE!

[terminator]

don't know if this stuff is any better than what we used to get back in college (back in the day).
how many of you guys remember Gainesville Green, Micanopy Madness or Tallahassee Two Toke?
Gotta love them national forests!

terminator - gotta lay off remembering that stuff while you still have two at FSU

[terminator]

9:09
it makes my robot eyes moist just thinking about it.

I still remember walking through the dorms and the wafting smells while hoping to get an errant panty shot from an open door.

Better yet I still remember our pre-practice rituals over at Coble Terrace.

Ah...those were the days!

The specialized equipment confiscated in these grow houses--is it destroyed or is it sold or auctioned to other growers of illegal weed? A friend told me he saw confiscated equipment being sold or auctioned at one of the sheriffs' boys ranches in north Florida in the past year.

That is such an evil drug! You cannot get the users of it to fight each other like drunks do. Heck, potheads are a danger to others as they tend to give hugs. Worse yet, you can remember what you did the next day. Yeck!

They should legalize it, tax it and hammer the meth and coke folks. We'll have more citizens being lawful, fewer folks in the pokey and some more tax revenue. It would be like raising the speed limit from 55 to 70; it reflects what most of the poulation condones anyway. BTW, I'm not a user of any drugs.

[John Donson]

If the Legislature would do something about property taxes and insurance, people wouldn't have to turn their houses into outlawed ventures. To the legislature, I say fix your own house before worrying about somebody else's.

That's some sweet smelling s_hit

For me it's opiated hash. More than two tokes is drug abuse.

Droopy pants, toliet paper in restrooms, grow houses...what's the next waster of time this Session?

Where's Peter Nehr when you need him?

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/feb/20/deputies-follow-state-representatives-nose-bust-po/

A landlord can really get screwed unknowingly renting to someone who gets caught using house for pot farm. The government can get the back rent paid to the landlord while grower/tenant was in house. Also the owner usually can't get the electric turned back on until the estimated electricity used by grower/tenant is paid. I've heard of owners bringing $50,000 checks to electric company for electric service. The house is worthless without electric and owner has to pay the electric bill for power stolen by grower if he wants to use house.

The electric company gets screwed too when police investigators tell utility they are monitoring criminal activity at house--the utility has to absorb expense for thousands of dollars of stolen electric while police work toward arrest.

[Brad]

What if I were to have several apartments, all on the same property, with 24 plants in each.

Loophole?

-Brad
www.ClashofCulture.com

I for one applaud our Attorney General for bringing this good legislation forward.

Bill McCollum will be our next Governor!

[Cheech]

Uh, 10:07...just how much of this stuff did you smoke?

Why not legalize prostitution while we're at it?

yeah! we can still grow 24 plants and be in the clear!

thank god the tax, budget, and insurance crisis is solved so our Sen. can get back to important things like criminalizing horticulture.

[The Dude]

Marijuana is not a drug! I personally grow 24 pot plants in my closet. I have crippling back pain. It's the only thing that dulls the pain. I like most American's, am flat broke. I can't afford a doctor visit, let alone pay to get a perscription filled.

WHY CAUSE ME PAIN? Are all those in favor of Marijuana being illegal gonna pay for my medication? Who am I hurting? I'm against selling it. So, by growing a plant in my closet and using it for my own medicinal purposes in the privacy of my own home; Somehow I am a drug dealing, pot head? No one even knows of my operation except my wife. So who could I possibly be hurting?

Also, if you believe all the Gorernment produced propiganda surrounding Marijuana, shame on you! Marijuana is NOT a gate way drug. Marijuana does not make people insane. Marijuana CAN NOT KILL!!!

The first drug most people tried was either Alchohol or tabacco. Yet they remain legal. Alchohol accounts for 50,000 death in the U.S. per year. Tabacco, another 10,000 deaths.

Here's the most compelling argument FOR Marijuana:

MARIJUANA HAS, NEVER, EVER, IN THE HISTORY OF MAN, KILLED A SINGLE HUMAN BEING. IT SIMPLY IS NOT TOXIC ENOUGH, IT CAN NOT KILL!

I don't care if it has a death penelty. I'll always grow and smoke Marijuana! Period. I hope I do get caught so I can fight the issue to the Supreme Court.

-The Dude

[This Guy]

I think we should focus on other things, Nehr is a jerk, i doubt that his story was as it was written. I wish the federal government would allow for 3rd-party indepent research so that we may move on with the world and allow medical marijuana everywhere.

I don't think 10 and 12 year olds need to go get stoned, do not get me wrong. I think a responsible adult can enjoy a doobie a day. Some folks come home and have a frosty brew, why can't you have a doobie?

We have tobacco that has no beneficial value except to prescription companies pockets when we're all dying of lung cancer & other related issues.

bah hum bug.