Posted on 09/23/2006 1:23:52 PM PDT by World_Events
Leon Nunn stepped out his front door one recent afternoon only to be waved back by a squadron of drug agents using a battering ram on a neighbor's home.
The half-million dollar home in the quiet subdivision was stuffed with high-grade marijuana, plants covering nearly every square foot.
The bust is one example of a phenomenon that has come to light recently in subdivisions around the state's capital.
Marijuana growers with suspected ties to Asian organized crime have been buying suburban homes — many in newer developments — because of the anonymity the drug dealers believe the neighborhoods afford.
They close the blinds and get to work gutting the inside, converting otherwise nondescript tract homes into the latest battleground in the state's campaign against marijuana cartels.
"We had no idea. I was shocked," said Nunn, an associate minister at Elk Grove's Progressive Church of God in Christ. "We never saw them or heard from them. It was just a real quiet house on the block."
The Nunns installed security lights and cameras and said some of their neighbors are talking of moving away.
"Now we're just suspicious every time we see something around here," said his wife, Patricia. "You pay this much money, you don't expect those things to happen."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I guess it is easier than trying to transport it across the borders.
Gotta put those local drug growers out of business fast. They may cut in on the lucrative import business. On the other hand they may only get ten percent of the locals the same as they do the "importers."
Asian organized crime must learn that the cops watch your electric bills, especially when you use credit cards to buy HMI lights and tanks of CO2.
The electricity meter is bypassed for the growing operation, leaving a normal electric bill... The neighborhoods are all new, with no established long time residents. The front areas of the houses are set up normally, with the growing operations in the rear of the houses. Unless you have seen the news stories, you wouldn't believe how sophisticated they are.
I just gotta wonder how many buds are missing at the end of the day.
END THE DRUG WAR NOW!
The drug warriors will be along shortly to demand warrant-less inspections of all homes in the subdivisions. It's the only way to be sure. Since anyone with nothing to hide should just open their doors. Saves the inconvenience of a forced entry.
If these guys make a market move on the tender baby spinach market; the FDA will be all over it.
"END THE DRUG WAR NOW!"
Exactly! End the drug war by winning...right now. Stop playing games with it and execute every second (or more) offender caught with more than a "user level" amount in their possession. Amend the Constitution to limit court appeals to one level/one appeal, and then when the case is lost, execute the offender the following day.
For those who are caught with less, no prison. Cane them, or whip them...and let them pick their choice of the two.
Except, the house looks like a christmass tree on Infrared - cops just fly the helos over and look for the heat bloom.
Somehow the words "half-million dollar" and "nondescript tract homes" just don't seem to go together for me. I guess I don't get out enough.
In my own experience, few people on earth are as obsessed about grass as your typical upscale suburban homeowner, so it appears to be a natural fit.
WOD - the Great Circle Jerk continues
Yes. It is.
Execute them in soccer stadiums! Stone them all!
I like the way you think.
In Calif that will probably get you a 3 bedroom 1 bath 1800 sq ft with a one car garage.
It's the SF Bay area. $500k is VERY common. It is NOT high end.
You must live in a 'normal' section of the country- I have a huge 4800 sq ft house that looks like a castle- it would sell for around $400K here (I hope!) and that is high for this area.
In many parts of the country a similar house would be easily well over a million (yes I am jealous) and a two bedroom shoebox is a half mil.
A friend of mine in NM bought hers for $450K and when she saw mine she said I easily had 3 times the house she had.
Wow. What penalty would you impose for selling cigarettes to a minor? How about jaywalking? I'd say on a second offense off with a foot.
Not in my neighborhood. Ok maybe the garage.
Of Pot? Give me a break
They're just putting the herb in suburb!
Drug use up for boomers, down for teens
That does seem a bit harsh. I just can not wait to hear what he has in store for heretics, divorcees, and tax cheats. Stoning is sooo passe'. When was civilized society last treated to crucifixions and impalement's?
"You must live in a 'normal' section of the country- I have a huge 4800 sq ft house that looks like a castle- it would sell for around $400K here (I hope!) and that is high for this area."
Where do you live?
"Somehow the words "half-million dollar" and "nondescript tract homes" just don't seem to go together for me."
LOL! It's a California thing, no sane person can understand it.
Just think how this will work out with statistics for the War on Terror. Low level drug dealers will confess to being terrorists because the penalties would be less brutal. There'll be less drug arrests so we'll be winning there, and more terror arrests so we'll be winning that war as well. Good work if you can get it.
Cool, looks like the Feds will get to confiscate some homes worth nearly 500k on today's market.
Move to Singapore, where they do such things (but still have a drug problem). This Christian and liberty-loving country has no interest in your barbaric proposals.
And like most liberals you think more money in federal hands is a good thing. Disgusting.
"What penalty would you impose for selling cigarettes to a minor? How about jaywalking? "
So let me get this straight...you cannot see a significant moral and criminal difference between importing/selling illegal narcotics and jaywalking?
Wow. Then I guess a parking ticket is pretty much in the same league with raping a child to you.
Just be real careful who you arrest. The first time lil' Johnny Whitebread faces the firing squad, the War's off.
How about stop calling it a "war" and start calling it what it is: enforcing the laws.
I know they like to smoke their sh!t, but they are dangerous and stupid.
President of Singapore, is that you?
Dealers like Coors and Seagrams? Contrary to your hysteria, legal drugs have not and will not "ruin the country." As for "polluting the young," the young report that marijuana is easier to get than beer or cigarettes, so the War On Drugs For Adults has failed in that regard.
The funny thing is, the same real estate agent sold them 18 houses.
He was "rookie of the year" agent at his agency.
"Somehow the words "half-million dollar" and "nondescript tract homes" just don't seem to go together for me. I guess I don't get out enough."
That's a cheap tract house on a postage stamp sized lot in Caifornia.
"And like most liberals you think more money in federal hands is a good thing. Disgusting."
Anything that does in users and dealers is a good thing!
Give any user caught a year of hard labor and the dealers will dry up.
Only the recreational drug warriors who worship at the alter of illegal recreational drugs would give you the least bit of validity.
That kind of sacrament gets no resepect from anyone else.
Punishments tend to be not very severe.
Adult son of one of my work associates had a massive pot growing operation in a rural barn.
He got busted basically because he couldn't keep his mouth shut about his success.
But he didn't do any jail time, although he lost the property, cars, etc but it was all mostly on credit anyway.
"Somehow the words "half-million dollar" and "nondescript tract homes" just don't seem to go together for me. I guess I don't get out enough."
In SF Bay area suburbs $500,000 might get you a 1,000 to 1,300 sq.ft. home about 40 years old. If even that.
Not that many if every one that is caught is given the maximum term.
They will quit using rather than do the hard time.
They will quit using rather than do the hard time.
No they won't.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.