204 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
204 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
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Inside the high-flying pot industry - by Gordon Witkin
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Nostalgic baby-boomers who remember hazy college highs on "Colombian gold"
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at $40 an ounce would not recognize the power or price of today's
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domestically grown weed--strains with nicknames like "Skunk Number 1" and
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"Salmon River Quiver." Breeding, cloning, seed selection, hydroponics and
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growing techniques that isolate the especially potent, unpollinated female
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plant, called sinsemilla, have produced a homegrown product with
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off-the-chart concentrations of pot's psycho-active ingredient,
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tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. And the potent new product has helped
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catapult the marijuana business over the past decade into an imposing,
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muscular industry belived to generate more than $16 billion in annual sales.
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"I hate to sound laudatory," says W. Michael Aldridge of the Drug
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Enforcement Administration, "but the work they've done on this plant is
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incredible."
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THC content for sinsemilla averaged 8 percent in 1988, and concentrations of
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14 to 16 percent aren't unusual. By contrast, Colombian and Mexican
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marijuana has a THC content of only 3 to 6 percent. "It's like the
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difference between buying a filet mignon and a hamburger," says Jack
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Beecham, commander of California's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.
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Sinsemilla prices can run up to $300 an ounce, and the average plant yields
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a pound of dope.
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Export boom. At least 25 percent of the pot consumed in the U.S. is now
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homegrown, up from 12 percent as recently as 1984. The expansion has been
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so swift that the U.S. stands on the verge of becoming an exporter nation.
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The Americans have also received a healthy push from the Netherlands, where
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several companies peddling top-quality seeds to the U.S. (see box, page 30)
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have "really changed the face of domestic marijuana as we know it today,"
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says Aldridge.
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Health experts believe the potency of the new marijuana drastically
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multiplies its health risks, and there is heightened concern about
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marijuana's being a "gateway" drug that leads users to harder, more lethal
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narcotics. Many of those assertions are disputed by pot's defenders, who
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are bracing themselves for a new law-enforcement crackdown that has been
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signaled by a series of busts culminating in a huge nationwide roundup last
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week. Drug czar William Bennett's National Drug Control Strategy, released
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in September, terms the domestic-pot situation "intolerable" and calls for
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an increase in federal funding to wipe it out, from $8 million in 1989 to
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$16 million in 1990, with further requests likely for 1991 and 1992. The
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strategy argues that success against pot "should become a bench mark of
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national antidrug resolve," adding that "we cannot expect foreign countries
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to undertake vigorous antidrug efforts inside their borders if we fail to do
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likewise."
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Authorities are most worried by the increasingly organized nature of the
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trade and the staggering amounts of money to be made. While some pot
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growers harvest only for themselves and a few friends, officials say
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organized, criminal marijuana rings are on the rise. Kentucky authorities
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are finishing up investigation of a group centered in rural Marion County
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that they say grew marijuana on 25 farms in nine Midwestern states, with
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distribution tentacles reaching as far as Maine. More than 75 members of
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the group, which called itself the "Cornbread Mafia," have now been
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prosecuted and 182 tons of sinsemilla seized.
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Marijuana growers no longer match the Cheech and Chong stereotypes.
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Illinois State University criminologist Ralph Weisheit found that most
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growers were active, productive members of their communities, such as
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real-estate agents and engineers. California busts have turned up teachers
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and a county supervisor. And, of course, it has become a salvation
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enterprise for many farmers who were devastated by the past decade's
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agricultural crises. "Looking back, I wouldn't do it, but at the time it
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seemed like the only way out," says Dick Kurth, 59, a Fort Benton, Mont.,
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cattle rancher, who just finished serving 15 months at the state prison for
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running a marijuana operation worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. "The
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family needed money for food on the table. It appeared we could solve our
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financial situation within a two-year period, wipe out our debts and keep
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the family together like we had been for five generations. I figured people
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who produce alcohol and tobacco sleep at night, and we should be able to
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live with this."
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A tit-for-tat chess match. The sorry truth, though, is that vigorous
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enforcement efforts will not necessarily solve the pot puzzle. Federal
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marijuana policies have been perhaps the best example of how drug
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enforcement resembles a balloon. When illicit-drug operations are squeezed
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in one place, they bulge out into another. "Every time [the government]
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comes up with a policy that seems like a good idea, it leads to some result
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we haven't thought of," says criminologist Weisheit.
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The action-counteraction sequence began in the late 1970s, when the
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government intensified efforts to eradicate and interdict foreign marijuana.
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The harder it became to bring pot into the country from afar, the more
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intent growers became in producing a domestic variety. "The major result of
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increased marijuana enforcement has been to substitute more-potent and
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dangerous domestic marijuana for less-potent imported marijuana," says
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Harvard lecturer Mark Kleiman, a former Justice Department analyst who
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recently wrote a book on the subject.
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As the domestic industry grew, drug agents and growers engaged in an
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elaborate chess match. The feds' aggressive policy of seizing growers'
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property, for instance, caused them to react by moving onto public
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lands--that is, to areas that could not be seized as a drug grower's asset.
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Once on government land, growers guarded their plots with what one observer
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termed a "Marquis de Sade torture chamber of devices": Concealed steel-jaw
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traps, land mines, hidden fish-hooks hung at eye level and camouflaged,
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Vietnam-style pits with sharpened sticks. The situation was so dangerous
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that in 1987, the public was advised to avoid 773,000 acres of
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national-forest land across the country, from the Shasta-Trinity National
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Forest in Northern California to the Daniel Boone National Forest in Eastern
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Kentucky. Stepped-up enforcement by the Forest Service helped reduce the
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total to 384,000 acres last year, but some forests remain perilous. Two
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Forest Service officers were recently shot at and their vehicle was rammed
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by suspected cultivators in Oregon's Rogue River National Forest.
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The vigorous outdoor eradication efforts undertaken in the mid-1980s have
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now prompted growers to take their latest countermeasure. They have moved
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to fancy indoor growing operations with high-intensity lamps, conveyors,
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timers, fans, sprinklers and automatic fertilizing systems. The added
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advantage of the move to this high-tech arena is that precisely regulated
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growing conditions--especially light availability--can yield three harvests
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a year, compared with just one outdoors. Growing indoors hides the crop
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from thieves, animals (deer love pot) and, most important, the law. "The
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cops brag they aren't finding pot in the hills of Northern California any
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more," says Tom Alexander, publisher of Sinsemilla Tips magazine. "What
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they don't say is that the growers are actually in a warehouse in San
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Francisco."
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The pot bible. The move indoors has now changed law enforcers' tactics,
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too. Last week, the DEA announced that 231 indoor "grows" nationwide had
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been busted, while some 36 stores peddling growing equipment were served
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either search warrants or subpoenas for records. In addition, 303 people
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were arrested in the continuing conspiracy investigation. The case was born
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in late 1987 when veteran DEA agent Jim Seward was struck as he thumbed
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through a copy of High Times magazine by how it had become a one-stop shop
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of ads for seed catalogs and growing equipment. High Times, the bible of
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the marijuana industry, "just seemed to be a middleman in a dope deal," says
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an exasperated Seward. Yet drug agents were struggling to police the indoor
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operations one by one with cumbersome traditional law-enforcement methods
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like informants.
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Seward decided to try something different. Undercover agents were sent to
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some 80 equipment dealers nationwide, saying only that they were interested
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in growing pot. "The response ranged from 'Would you like to buy my
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business?' to selling us plants to 'I don't know what you're talking about,'
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but very few turned us down flat," says Seward. Armed with the legally
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necessary "reasonable belief," DEA then subpoenaed United Parcel Service
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this summer for 90 days' worth of shipping records from 29 of the equipment
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firms, a strategy that kicked out an incredible 21,000 leads. "The problem
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is growing faster than we can target resources," says Seward.
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Indeed, in 1984, 649 indoor growing operations were seized in 22 states; by
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1988, the totals were 1,240 indoor "grows" in 41 states. And the profit
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potential is staggering. Convicted former grower Paul Stanford of Portland
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says he rented a house, invested $1,600 in equipment--six lamps, a timer and
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a few fans were the big expenses--and took in $25,000 from his first
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harvest. "It seems too easy to be true," adds Brian, a former Virginia
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grower, who insisted his last name not be used. "But if you can grow good
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tomatoes, you can grow good pot."
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Meanwhile, the stores selling indoor equipment are now "a big, booming
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industry," says High Times Editor-in-chief Steven Hager. In late 1985, say
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DEA agents, only nine such companies were advertising in High Times. By
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mid-1989, 81 firms were running equipment ads in High Times. Store owners
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and advertisers feel they are getting a bum rap when authorities claim they
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are part of the conspiracy to produce pot. "We sell a product where we can.
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We don't check people out," says Dan Murphy, who owns a gardening-equipment
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distributorship in Seattle that was seized by the feds last week. "You
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advertise where you feel you have a market." DEA agents, however, feel
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their investigation puts them on solid ground in charging many of the
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merchants selling indoor-growing gear with aiding and abetting in the
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distribution and manufacture of controlled substances.
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Apple-pie pot. Above this storm, High Times itself is doing quite nicely.
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Advertising manager Ellen Spencer states that the gardening industry "has
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really found a market here" and says the growth in ad pages has been
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"monstrous" in recent years, though she declines to quote exact figures.
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Average sales per issue are 80,000-85,000, up from about 72,000 just three
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years ago, in part, says editor Hager, because the magazine has returned to
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its counterculture roots. "Pot smokers are the most persecuted minority
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group in America. At some point, they'll turn around and fight for their
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rights," he says. "This plant is not anti-American. It's part of the
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fabric of American society."
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But like it or not, pot is still illegal. In fact, it is becoming more so.
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Oregon, a leader in the 1970s decriminalization movement, just hiked its
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maximum fine for possessing less than an ounce of pot from $100 to $1,000,
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and last fall's federal drug bill provided for five-year minimum mandatory
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prison sentences for cultivation of 100 plants or more. Drug agents feel
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that has given them the green light for using innovative but surely
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controversial methods to go after the growers. "Until the law changes,"
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says Terrence Burke, DEA's acting deputy administrator, "we're going to
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enforce it."
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Another file downloaded from: The NIRVANAnet(tm) Seven
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& the Temple of the Screaming Electron Taipan Enigma 510/935-5845
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Burn This Flag Zardoz 408/363-9766
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realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 510/527-1662
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Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 801/278-2699
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The New Dork Sublime Biffnix 415/864-DORK
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The Shrine Rif Raf 206/794-6674
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Planet Mirth Simon Jester 510/786-6560
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"Raw Data for Raw Nerves"
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