UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, April 14, 1997
5A
HIGH TECH
Continued from Page 1A
Advanced and cheap technology gives marijuana smokers better ways to grow indoor stashes, police say. Newly developed and highly efficient lighting systems, advancements in plant cloning techniques and elaborate grow systems that require no soil have flooded the market in the last five years.
In marijuana magazines like High Times, advertisements for inexpensive hydroponic systems and the increased availability of hydroponic equipment contribute to the growing number of closet cultivators.
Hydroponics, or cultivating crops without soil, provides a cheap, easy, highly productive and less-risky method for growing the most potent marijuana on and off the market, officials say.
White light and a mechanized hum
Joe's roommate, Robert, opens one of the double doors of his bedroom closet. Out pours an alien, blinding light. The industrial-size fixture radiates impressive heat. Beneath hanging T-shirts, next to an Adidas box, winds a maze of PVC tubing and smaller black tubes that lead to inverted two-liter plastic bottles. The bottoms are cut off, and the bottles are filled with blue aquarium rocks.
Hanging from the top of the closet is a 400-watt, metal halide light bulb with a white hood directing the sci-fi灯 onto the plants and the plastic tubing.
The tubes are the veins and arteries of the hydroponic system. They carry water and nutrients through the system and return the water to a reservoir, where a pump starts the cycle again.
"You've got to make sure the reservoir is not exposed to the light," Robert said. "The light can make algae start to grow, and that can kill the plants."
Killing the plants would waste over $300 that the two put into the system. The streetlight alone cost $250.
In each of the inverted two-liter bottles lies what looks like a leaf with a tiny stalk. These clones are pot science's answer to reproduction. Cloning marijuana plants allows growers to know what type of plant they are growing and, most importantly, its sex.
Only female plants produce enough THC and CBD, the psychoactive chemicals in marijuana, to produce a high.
To make a clone, a grower cuts a small branch off of the mother plant. The clone will have the identical genetic make up of the mother plant.
The small clones are placed in water, rocks or rock wool.
Hydroponic history
All this can be accomplished with legal technology from legitimate businesses.
Hydroponics were used by the ancient Chinese for growing crops and made the famous hanging gardens of Babylon possible, said Thom Barrett, owner and manager of Green Circle Hydroponics, a store in Overland Park that sells indoor plant-growing equipment.
Today many scientists hail hydroponics as the answer to future crop-land shortages. NASA engineers have developed large grow chambers, relying completely on hydroponics, that could be used on a proposed space station.
Back on earth, Barrett's business has improved drastically in the last three years.
But he never asks what customers plan to grow with their equipment.
Not coming out of the closet
But Joe and Robert do not plan to feed the world's hungry from their closet. In two to three months, they hope to harvest close to a pound of marijuana.
By then, each of the 15 plants will resemble a miniature Christmas tree. Frequent pruning and trimming will limit the plants to no higher than 20 inches and to no more than a foot in diameter.
Although Joe and Robert could sell their produce for more than $6,400, they plan to keep it all.
"I don't respect people who grow and sell," Robert said. "I don't want to support the black market. It's very rewarding to grow your own — kind of like growing vegetables or brewing beer."
Robert said that he probably would save almost $2,000 this year by not buying marijuana.
Inverted 2-liter bottles With the bottoms cut off, the bottles serve as pots for the pot, with an opening to allow the water to re-enter the system.
Drawing the shades
However, no dollar amount can be placed on the paranoia many
By forcing air into the water and bringing bubbles to the surface, the pump readies the water for re-use.
Distributor tube Rubber tubing runs freshly aerated water to the plants through drip rings.
growers experience.
"Sometimes I look out the window and just assume that they're watching me," Robert said. "That way you don't fuck up."
Robert has good reason to be paranoid. If caught he and Joe face a possible punishment of 14 to 51 months in prison and a maximum fine of $300,000. On top of that, there is a maximum fine of $100,000 for possessing marijuana without tax stamps. By law, people who possess marijuana are required to report its value and pay taxes on it.
Many large-scale operations are passed on to the U.S. Attorney, said Dana Dunbart, Douglas County assistant district attorney.
Chris Watney, public affairs specialist at the U.S. Attorney's office in Wichita, said that the number of cases that her office had prosecuted in Kansas had remained fairly steady over the last five years.
Reservoir The tank holds the water while it is returned and recycled, then sent back along the distributor tube.
Last year, Rowley's division seized more than 11,000 marijuana plants. More than 7,000 of those plants grew wild. But of the 4,000 seized plants, only 53 were indoor plants.
Special Agent Dale Rowley of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agreed that the numbers indicated an increasing number of people setting up small, indoor-growing operations.
PVC pipe The system recycles the water after it moistens the soil, returning the water to the reservoir.
Growing penalties
prison. Maximum fine of $250,000.
Between 50 and 100 plants:
Felony charge. Five to 40 years in prison. Maximum fine of $2 million.
Kansas punishments
Railas penalities
Less than five plants: Misdemeanor possession charge. Up to one year in county jail. Maximum fine of $2,500.
In 1994, his agents seized 2,649 indoor plants, most of which came from a single raid in Wyandotte County.
Five or more plants: felony cultivation charge. Fourteen to 51 months in prison. Maximum fine of $300,000.
Federal punishments
Less than 50 plants: Felony charge. Maximum five years in
Sources: Dan Dunbar, Douglas County assistant district attorney. Chris Watteny, public affairs specialist at the U.S. Attorney's office in Wichita
More than 100 plants:20 years to life in prison. Maximum fine of $4 million.
marjuanja over the risk of buying and selling the drug on the black market.
Rowley said that in the last five years, his agents had not only seen in increase in the number of indoor operations but had found more and more hydroponic systems.
"You have to depend on other people, and you never know what the outcome is," Robert said.
But growing brings its own risks and paranoia along with it.
These closet cultivators concentrate on growing a small number of high-yield, hydroponic plants, he said. This reduces the need for large rooms and numerous grow lights, making it more difficult for police to find growers.
"Things that happen that are quirk little things suddenly get turned into conspiracy theories in the back of your mind," Mark said. "You're forced to think about these kinds of things to ensure that nothing will go wrong."
Robert said that when the paranoida started to control your life, it was time to get out of the business.
Despite lurking police and harsh penalties, many growers say that they prefer the risk of growing
"Of course, you have to be paranoid to be safe, but if you're experienced it shouldn't be too much of a problem," he said. "I trust no one."
Feeling the heat
Neither does Special Agent Rowley. Although his office is on the top floor of the KBI building in Topeka, surrounded by agent after agent sitting at partitioned desks, he always locks the door, even if he only is going downstairs.
As head of the narcotics division of the KBI, Rowley oversees 30 agents who do everything from shutting down crystal meth labs to flying over and identifying marijuana fields.
Rowley said that his agents had to work particularly hard in the spring when indoor marijuana growers move their crops outside so their plants can grow as high as seven feet.
The walls of the narcotics division office are adorned with photos of marijuana buds and fields that Rowley's division has eradicated. Next to these are paintings of helmeted KBI agents rushing into burning houses.
Although growers often move their crops under the protection of night and use black-out curtains to hide indoor grow lights, Rowley knows they're out there.
He said that detecting indoor
operations presented his agents with many problems.
"We can't just go knocking down doors," he said. "We've got to get a warrant before we can go into houses."
Law enforcement agencies usually learn of indoor-growing operations from an anonymous tip or from an informant who is bargaining for a lesser charge. After receiving the tip, officers or agents use heat sensors from airplanes and helicopters or hand-held sensors that can be used from the street.
If an abnormal amount of heat is detected in an attic or basement, the agents will present the information to a judge and obtain a warrant.
"In the winter, if there's a house on a block that doesn't have any snow on the roof, and the houses next to it do, then we know something's going on," Rowley said.
Sometimes the detection is less high-tech.
On this harvest moon So Robert and Joe keep their
blinds shut and make sure they do not discuss anything revealing over the phone.
"I just automatically assume the phones are tapped," Robert says.
They sit back and load a bowl of marijuana, which they just harvested, into a small glass pipe. On the television show COPS, police chase a car through the streets of Kansas City, Mo.
"You're not going to throw that in the trash, are you?" Joe asks Robert as he puts marijuana leaves and stems into an ashtray.
The two said that they tried to keep all marijuanase refuse in separate sacks, which they take to a dumpster in a parking lot.
They've heard that police often obtain search warrants by checking trash for seeds and stems.
In the back of the townhouse, a loud click and a steady hum alerts them to the simulated sunrise of the 400-watt light. Joe walks back to make sure the blinds are closed.
"You've always got to watch out." Robert said. "As soon as you think they're not coming for you, they'll get you."
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