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CaptainLinger
A Fungus Amongus


Registered: 05/25/07
Posts: 1,756
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
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Home-grown: California's Marijuana Industry
#7609893 - 11/08/07 03:41 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Month-old post from the Economist, but not really time-sensitive. The economic argument for legalization seems to be gaining serious ground.
http://economist.com/world/na/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=10000884
Home-grown Oct 18th 2007 | CHINO HILLS From The Economist print edition
Forget wine—California's biggest crop is bright green and funny-smelling
SUBURBS don't come much tidier than Chino Hills, 30 miles (50 km) east of downtown Los Angeles. Last year, the neighbourhood of coffee-coloured stucco houses and three-car garages boasted an average household income twice that of the nation as a whole. In Vista del Sol, one of its quiet enclaves, every house but one has a neatly-trimmed green lawn. And, until recently, the exception was verdant inside. When the police went in, they found more than 800 marijuana plants—a small part of what is turning out to be an enormous harvest.
Greg Garland, a local narcotics cop, used to discover about a dozen houses a year that had been turned into marijuana factories. So far this year he has raided more than 40. The production boom is not confined to the suburbs. Since April the state's annual “Campaign against Marijuana Planting” has pulled 2.9m plants worth some $10 billion from back gardens, timber forests and state lands (see chart). Marijuana is now by far California's most valuable agricultural crop. Assuming, very optimistically, that the cops are finding every other plant, it is worth even more than the state's famous wine industry.
The illicit crop is grown with a technical sophistication that Napa Valley's Robert Mondavi might envy. To supply outdoor plantations, rivers are dammed and water piped as far as two miles. Plants are nourished with fertilisers and tended by workers brought to America specifically for the purpose. Ageing hippies are responsible for only a few such operations. Kent Shaw, a state narcotics officer, reckons four-fifths of outdoor marijuana plantations are run by Mexican criminal gangs.
Indoor factories, by contrast, are largely the province of East Asian entrepreneurs. They prefer to buy houses rather than rent them, to avoid the attention of landlords. They tend to go for big ones in good neighbourhoods: the property in Vista del Sol cost more than $600,000. Like good horticulturalists, they propagate strains of the plant that produce a high proportion of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, marijuana's active ingredient) and speed their growth by means of heat and artificial light.
Why the boom? The National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that the rate of marijuana use in California has barely risen in the past few years, whereas production has hugely increased. Some 11% of the state's population indulge—just a puff over the national average, and less than every state in New England.
The likely explanation is a steady tightening of America's borders after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 and the panic over illegal immigration. California used to import high-grade marijuana from Canada and low-grade weed from Mexico. Both routes are now more risky. As a result, Asian gangs have moved south from British Columbia, where they dominate the hydroponic trade. Mexican distributors, who may handle cocaine and methamphetamine as well as marijuana, have diversified into production.
In places like Chino Hills, the boom has also been helped by demographic change. Like many southern California suburbs, Chino Hills has been rapidly transformed from a mostly white area to a rainbow one. Residents of such a diverse place may be more inclined to ignore odd behaviour and a funny smell emanating from the house down the road—provided that the grass is kept
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jeetered
Stranger



Registered: 07/07/06
Posts: 3,055
Loc: no clue
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Re: Home-grown: California's Marijuana Industry [Re: CaptainLinger]
#7610010 - 11/08/07 06:08 AM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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great, another boom in mexi schwag HOW WE NEED MORE I SAY!!!
not really..
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kindadank
Stranger


Registered: 07/14/03
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Re: Home-grown: California's Marijuana Industry [Re: jeetered]
#7611665 - 11/08/07 03:21 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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Did you even read the article?
Just because it is outdoor and it is grown by mexicans, it doesn't make it schwag.
The article is mainly about indoor grow ops set up by asians anyways.
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Cannabischarlie
Resident badass


Registered: 11/28/05
Posts: 14,494
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Re: Home-grown: California's Marijuana Industry [Re: kindadank]
#7699840 - 11/30/07 04:41 PM (16 years, 2 months ago) |
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schwag is NOT a drag. I smoke it daily but do love the good stuff. they are just catching less because people have gotten crafty. very few poly drug people deal with pot, its too bulky and they got other priorities that make more money for the same space, and dont stink as much alot of it is individuals trafficking 5-50 pounds at once in a car across our porous borders.
a lot of it is grown domestically, in the last 10 years domestic is up 10 fold, prohibition fails more and more and more. since the production is very easy and often lo key. theres a few dudes with 10-40 plants maybe also that rarely get caught that are pumping it on the market, ive been to a grow basement. and i bet only 1 person ever bought a 600,000 dollar house when you can buy some cheapo shell houses, maybe 5 of them for the same price in lesser areas. the market is getting flooded, and its only a good thing.
colorado has ALOT of pot, but you never hear about it, alot comes from nearby mexico, wyoming, tons of small-medium ops, etc.
overgrow the government!
-------------------- This section of the signature line has been intentionally left blank.
we could all use a little more sunshine.
yeah, she's funny and somewhat interesting. not a beauty queen, but not bad lookin. i'd feel quite honored to fuck janine garofalo. -tiny_rabid_birds
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Zinglons Acolyte
Wizard Ninja


Registered: 12/03/07
Posts: 2,877
Loc: Andromeda Galaxy
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Re: Home-grown: California's Marijuana Industry [Re: Cannabischarlie]
#7766084 - 12/16/07 03:45 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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heh.... if the main reason theyre getting caught is cause the lawns and frontplants are overgrown, why dont they have their ppl go and do some gardening, so even with the smaell they wouldnt stick out quite as much
i mean wise up, maybe drive down the price of an eighth by about 5 bucks or something lol
-------------------- And they wandered off.. nine ways till bedfast. ----- "And lets pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space 'cause theres bugger-all down here on earth!" -Monty Python's "The Universe Song" from The Meaning of Life "In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely considered as a bad move." -Douglas Adams "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" "If the words 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on." -Terence McKenna
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