Growing

New Zealand: Gardening Customers Don’t Have To Show I.D.

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 25, 2010 Global, Growing

Last month, police raided Switched On Gardener branches throughout New Zealand. Those must be some really dangerous gardens!

Last month, police raided Switched On Gardener branches throughout New Zealand, along with other gardening supply stores, after what they claimed was a two-year undercover investigation code named Operation Lime, reports Jared Savage at NZ Herald.

Under the new bail conditions, customers at the gardening supply stores will no longer have to hand over identification.

Directors at staff at the 16 stores were charged. The shops were allowed to continue operating as long as they followed strict bail conditions requested by police.

The Orwellian court order initially required every customer in the gardening shops to hand over their identification and give their phone number, address and date of birth. You know… Gotta watch those dangerous gardeners!

Legal Michigan Patient’s Property Destroyed In Marijuana Raid

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 24, 2010 Growing, Medical

Photo: Edwyn W. Boyke

This photo was taken by legal medical marijuana patient Edwyn W. Boyke Jr., 64, of Saginaw Township, after police raided his home and destroyed his $7,000 grow setup.

When U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department raided Edwyn W. Boyke Jr.’s house on April 15, they didn’t just thuggishly bust up his grow room.

They also confiscated a lot of his property — including a car, TV, two lawnmowers, a little pocket cash, scales, five jars of harvested marijuana, little seedlings, and larger plants — along with Boyke’s Michigan medical marijuana card.

Boyke still hasn’t been charged with a crime, and he is legally allowed to grow and use marijuana under a law Michigan voters passed in a landslide with 63 percent of the vote in 2008, reports The Saginaw News.

Here’s What Your Grow Room Looks Like After The Cops Raid It

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 20, 2010 Growing, Medical

Photo: Edwyn W. Boyke

This photo was taken by legal medical marijuana patient Edwyn W. Boyke Jr., 64, of Saginaw Township, after police raided his home and destroyed his $7,000 grow setup.

Saginaw County, Michigan sheriff’s department officials claim their “destruction policy” will change after a legal medical marijuana grower released photos of his basement grow room following a police “visit.”

Deputies will discontinue their policy of destroying all grow room equipment when they serve search warrants at the homes of medical marijuana patients or caretakers, Saginaw County Sheriff’s Detective Randy P. Pfau claimed.

Edwyn W. Boyke Jr., 64, of Saginaw Township, released the sobering photos after the raid conducted by deputies and federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in the basement of his home, reports Gus Burns of The Saginaw News.

New Zealand Man Faces Prison For Selling Gardening Equipment

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 20, 2010 Global, Growing

Photo: CannaZine

There’s still no word on when they plan to arrest the entire Earth for providing soil upon which marijuana “could be grown.” A hapless New Zealand garden store manager is facing a likely jail term for selling undercover police “equipment that could be used to cultivate cannabis.”

Peter James Stewart, 50, admitted five charges of supplying equipment or material that could be used to cultivate marijuana when he appeared before Judge Kevin Phillips on Tuesday, reports The Southland Times.

Nation’s Biggest Medical Pot Farm Coming To Michigan?

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 20, 2010 Growing, Medical

Photo: Legal Juice

All those plants, and not a pants pocket anywhere.

Let’s get one thing out of the way to begin with. If you get a job at the proposed biggest medical marijuana farm in the United States, you will be required to wear coveralls without pockets, so don’t plan on pilfering.

The huge, 25,000-plant marijuana growing operation could be coming to Michigan soon. A Florida man has approached officials to convert an empty paper plant in Frenchtown Charter Township into a gargantuan cannabis growing factory.

The planned operation would have 340 compartments, reports Dick Berry of WTOL. Each can supply five qualified patients and grow a dozen plans per patient, “which means the building could house up to 25,000 plants worth millions,” Berry reports.

Low Pot Prices Create Panic; We Should All Have Such Problems

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 17, 2010 Culture, Growing, News

Graphic: Humboldt Clothing Company

Marijuana cultivation — of the illegal variety — has been the economic lifeblood of three counties — Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity — in Northern California, known as the Emerald Triangle. The War On Drugs and frequent raids by federal agents have helpfully kept street prices of pot sky-high and profits large for renegade farmers.

But greater supply, more competition, and especially the prospect of legalized marijuana — with the issue enjoying majority support and slated to appear on November’s ballot in California — is exerting downward pressure on pot prices, reports Michael Montgomery at NPR.

The Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), a massive air and ground assault launched by the Reagan Administration in 1983, with the goal of “eradicating” pot and arresting growers in the Emerald Triangle area, was a big factor in causing wholesale pot prices to shoot to as high as $5,000 a pound. The sudden windfall for growers willing to risk prison time changed the mellow pot-growing culture forever.

100-Year-Old Government Hemp Farm Diaries To Be Revealed

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 17, 2010 Culture, Growing

Photo: Courtesy Adam Eidinger

Lyster Dewey, a botanist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the early 1900s, is seen measuring a 4-meter-tall hemp plant at Arlington Farm.

Never-before seen journals found recently at a garage sale outside Buffalo, N.Y., chronicle the life of Lyster Dewey, who tended a United States government hemp farm in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Dewey, a botanist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, wrote in detail about growing strains of hemp called Keijo, Chinamington and others on a tract of government land known as Arlington Farm, reports Manuel Roig-Franzia of the The Washington Post.

If the “Arlington” part of that name sounds familiar — as in Arlington National Cemetery — that’s because the acreage used to grow the hemp was handed over to the War Department in the 1940s for construction of the world’s largest office building: the Pentagon.

So in addition to the already-known intertwining of the noble hemp plant and U.S. history, now it is revealed that the very location of the Pentagon itself was once covered with verdant fields of cannabis.

The Hemp Industries Association, a small trade group, bought Dewey’s diaries. Leaders of the group are betting that displaying them for the first time on Monday will help increase public knowledge that hemp was used for ropes on Navy ships and World War II parachute webbing.

Colorado Springs Raids Shake Medical Marijuana Community

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 14, 2010 Growing, Medical

Photo: Event Setter

Shock waves are still reverberating through the medical marijuana community after more than half-a-dozen growing operations were raided by the Colorado Springs Metro Vice unit on Wednesday.

Police served seven warrants, claiming they were all illegal growing operations, reports 11 News.

All seven were growing operations and not storefront dispensaries, according to police spokesman Sgt. Steve Noblitt.

Snitch Site For Marijuana Informers Backfires In Utah

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 14, 2010 Culture, Growing

Graphic: NORML

The state of Utah had what it thought was a brilliant idea to eradicate marijuana farming on public land: Ask citizen snitches to report any pot patches they run across.

The state made it easy with a website with helpful links to assist its deputized citizenry in identifying marijuana and signs of grow operations, reports Greg Campbell at dscriber.

“Did you know marijuana is being illegally grown in Utah?” the site, with a keen grasp of the obvious, ominously warns. “Have you ever been hiking or camping and seen what looks like an illegal marijuana growing operation? We have created this website to make it easier for people to report this illegal activity, so we can crack down and keep these illegal drugs out of our state and off our streets.”

Yeah, it seemed like a great idea. That is, until NORML posted a story about Utah’s misguided efforts. Within 24 hours, pot-friendly visitors flooded the site with fake tips.

CO Dispensary Bill Now Keeps Pot Growing Locations Secret

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on May 7, 2010 Dispensaries, Growing, News

Photo: A Greener Country

A bill regulating Colorado’s medical marijuana dispensaries is almost ready for the governor’s desk after legislators Thursday decided to keep the location of licensed cannabis-growing operations confidential.

The change would require the addresses of growing facilities to be blacked out on copies of their licensing documents requested by the public, reports John Ingold of The Denver Post.

It would mean that Colorado residents couldn’t learn from public records if there are legal marijuana-growing operations in their neighborhoods.

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