[420 Girl]

TALLAHASSEE — Southwest Florida has had a long history in the battle against marijuana trafficking and production. Its history is replete with tales of abandoned airplanes, bales washing ashore and remote fields scattered about.
But times have changed. Just as biological engineering has improved the quality of such crops as corn, soybeans and rice, science has also had a hand in this cash crop. Refined growing techniques and enhanced strands of marijuana have made the plant up to 15 times more potent than crops grown 20 years ago.

While techniques have changed law enforcement has not. Enter Rep. Nick Thompson, R-Fort Myers, who is trying to update state laws to adapt to a changing illegal business.

Growers now don’t need to find remote strands of countryside to profitably cultivate their crops for commercial sale. Armed with new technology, they can as easily and more profitably set up in a house.

Grow lights, climate control and a caretaker to tend to the plants in exchange for room board and a little income becomes an increasingly attractive option. With potent marijuana selling at $4,000 a pound and up, many growers have learned that quality trumps quantity.

The use of such grow houses have been on the rise in recent years. Florida is only outnumbered by California in the amount of grow houses. As of 2006, law enforcement uncovered marijuana grow houses in 41 of Florida’s 67 counties, according to House estimates. Under current law, investigators must find 300 plants to determine that a defendant was growing the crop to sell.

Thompson’s bill would change that by reducing the number of plants needed to be considered a commercial crop. The measure is scheduled to make its last committee stop Tuesday before going to the House floor. A similar bill is traveling in the Senate.

Thompson’- bill reduces the threshold to 25 plants. It would also make it a third degree felony to own, rent or lease a house mobile home or other structure for the purposes of establishing a grow house.

The proposal would also bump the penalties up to first degree felony if their was a child living at the house and allow law enforcement officials to destroy growing equipment once their investigation is complete.

“In Florida, those who use grow houses to traffic drugs belong in prison,” Thompson said recently. “Under this legislation we are clearly telling drug dealers, ‘if you grow, you go.’ ”

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