DEA: Marijuana grow houses on the rise in Texas

DEA: Marijuana grow houses on the rise in Texas
KSAT12 / Tim Gerber / 2,17,2012

Growing marijuana in plain sight

SAN ANTONIO - Residents of a quiet West Side neighborhood recently discovered their peaceful community was hiding a secret in plain sight.

San Antonio Police officers were called to a house in the 1300 Block of Autumn Moon on January 2, after CPS Energy investigators found out someone in the home had illegally tapped into a nearby power supply and was drawing a large amount of electricity.

When police entered the home, they found dozens of marijuana plants in various stages of growth growing under some lights. Some of the plants were as tall as eight-feet high. The officers had stumbled onto a marijuana grow house, which is essentially an indoor pot farm. "We've seen an upsurge in presence of these grow houses," said Mauricio Fernandez, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the San Antonio District office.

While grow houses have been a big problem for law enforcement out West in states like California and Nevada, Fernandez said they are not that common in Texas mainly because of our close proximity to the border and a seemingly endless supply of marijuana coming in from Mexico.

"We get a lot of Mexican marijuana coming through here and there's a market and there's a preference for Mexican marijuana," Fernandez said.
There is also a growing market for higher grade pot that is often grown in elaborate indoor farming operations. Often times, those indoor farms are hidden in plain sight in nice homes in quiet neighborhoods making them difficult to detect. "A lot of times you stumble across it," Fernandez said. "Somebody calls you, somebody tells you, somebody is in the in."

Growing pot inside a home gives the farmer the freedom to cultivate large crops in a short period of time. "Let's say in a thousand square feet, you can easily fit 300, 400 plants," Fernandez said.

"You can grow it as fast as you want. You can grow different types if you prefer. It's a ready-made service within the comforts of your home."
The reefer grown indoors if often bred to be more potent than other strains and the crops are extremely profitable. "The THC level for example in the 60's and 70's was low, very low single digits. What we see today varies from 8.0 up to double digits easily," Fernandez said. "These can vary up to $5,000 a pound or more depending on the quality."

To keep the operations from being detected, Fernandez said the growers go to great lengths to cover their tracks. The windows are blacked out so no one can see inside. Other materials are used to keep the light and the heat inside from escaping and carbon filters are used to keep the pungent smell from wafting out into the neighborhood. The homes require a huge amount of electricity to power the lights needed to grow the weed around the clock. Because that much power consumption would be suspicious, many grow houses are illegally wired. The growers will by-pass the meter on the home and tap directly into the power grid. That's ultimately what led to the discovery of the grow house on Autumn Moon. Residents had been complaining about recurring power outages that were caused by the grow house.

"Sometimes they become very innovative. Instead of just hard-wiring or taping into the local electricity from the city illegally, they've become pretty creative over the years," Fernandez said. "They have other means and we counter that with of course other technology."

Aside from the drugs inside and the dangers caused by a "hot wired" home, Fernandez said many of the grow houses are booby trapped to protect the crops from thieves and police.

"That's why law enforcement, when they do approach these type of localities, it's with great caution," Fernandez said. "You don't know what you're going to face and they do have the ability at times to rig it to go ahead and destroy what's in there. Unfortunately many times that trigger mechanism occurs when law enforcement is about to come in or are in the process of entering a locale and it presents a great safety issue for the officer that's present."

While grow houses can be difficult for law enforcement to detect, the residents who live near them often have their suspicions raised by abnormal behavior. That was the case on Autumn Moon. "We always talk to each other. Our kids play together. Everybody says 'Hi' in the morning for the exception of that house and we found that kind of strange," said Benita Rios a resident who lives near the grow house. "They always went into the garage, never through the front door, always close the garage door before they get out of the car."

Fernandez said abnormal behavior like that is a key indicator something suspect is going on and people should report it to authorities so they can investigate.

"When you have a situation where people living in a home or community in a residence and they purposely want to block out you being able to look into their home, they're not interactive, they're very defensive and you see a lot of movement of people in and out I think it should raise suspicion," Fernandez said. "Typically people engage each other, they talk, that's part of being in a community, I think abnormalities from there should be suspect."

Are you wondering if a neighbor is growing marijuana inside his/her home? Click here to know how to spot a grow house in your neighborhood.


Nothing like a good training propaganda article to help the drug warriors take our country on into bankruptcy.

As mentioned before,,with our real estate market in the trash,what better way to bypass the border than to just grow it inside the country.

 

@fruitsnacks,,it ain't just San Antoinio,,live in a small town in Texas and while one neighbor is a long time friend,,the other neighbors within 2 blocks never even wave if you don't wave first.

Our society has become dangerous and so anti-social it has evolved from weekend block parties to a small get together,,usually with fewer than 6 people.

Marijuana has the ability to change that.