Florida has the second highest number of indoor marijuana growers behind California. In 2006, officials in 41 of Florida’s 67 counties uncovered indoor growers. In these houses, the marijuana is typically grown hydroponically - that is, using a nutrient solution instead of soil. It is usually cut, dried and packaged on the premises. Marijuana grown this way is as much as 200 percent more potent than if the drug were grown outdoors. Growers can harvest the drug in three months as opposed to six months in the fields.

In Miami-Dade County, pot manufacturing is a blooming business in which even Little League coaches are getting in on the action. cops arrested 35-year-old Manuel Ojeda and 41-year-old Jorge Perez on marijuana trafficking charges. According to their arrest affidavits, the pair — who coached baseball to six- and seven-year-olds at Tamiami Park — rented two condos in the Hammocks neighborhood of unincorporated Southwest Miami-Dade and converted them into grow houses. Investigators found 148 plants.

Moreover, as the heat has grown locally, Miami Cubans, the same demographic group that made the Magic City a cocaine mecca in the Eighties, have set up marijuana grow houses in thinly populated counties to the north. In some cases, they have used the proceeds to pay off smugglers who helped them come to the United States. In Charlotte County, which includes sleepy towns like Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte, deputies shut down only three grow houses in 2006. This year police have busted four times as many labs. “They all follow similar patterns,” says Charlotte County Sheriff’s spokesman Robert Carpenter. “Everyone busted here have been Cuban nationals.”

Now they are moving north, one factor in these areas’ popularity is affordable housing, Benton says. While a three-bedroom home in Miami sells for about $350,000 to $400,000, a similar place in Lehigh Acres or North Port can cost less than $200,000. That leaves plenty of cash for equipment. “They are some of the most technically accomplished electricians and plumbers out there,” says Charlotte County Sheriff’s spokesman Robert Carpenter. “They set up some of the most intricate and elaborate lighting and irrigation systems you can imagine. They also destroy the inside of the houses, completely gut them.”

rest of article: MT

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