The hydroponic marijuana-growing community has suspected for a while that they’re being watched, and for good reason. By the DEA’s own account, law enforcement has turned its attention increasingly toward indoor growing operations as a quarter century of an aggressive eradication campaign has forced an increasing number of pot farmers to seek shelter.
The feds’ tactics vary, but their focus falls not infrequently on hydroponic gardening supply stores. Four years ago, a newspaper in Florida discovered that local police were tracking customers of Simply Hydroponics to their homes then, if they detected unusually high power usage or the smell of weed, obtaining a search warrant and conducting raids. And sometimes, they target the gardening suppliers themselves. Dallas Observer has the rest.