IT'S WHAT'S INSIDE THAT COUNTS FOR HOME-BASED POT GROW OPS

It looks like any other house on the block, a modest single-family
home with a garage, a few bedrooms and a neatly trimmed front lawn. On
the outside, the home is normal in every way but, inside, where there
should be furniture and a family, there is instead a complicated
system of electrical bypasses, timers, lights, fans, carbon dioxide
generators and chemicals, all to tend to a crop of marijuana plants
potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Dan Pons of the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET)
gives an insider's look at the anatomy of an average grow operation,
from the bottom up.

THE TENANTS

Grow ops are usually in a rented home with an absentee landlord,
started by a "master grower" who establishes the plant clones, which
are then tended by somebody, or quite often a family, living in
another city. Once the plant matures, they're harvested and
transported to another location for drying, packaging and shipping,
usually across the border into the U.S.

By then, the haul is about 100 to 200 pounds, an amount that requires
the connections of a sophisticated web of organized crime to distribute.

Starting a grow op, on the other hand, requires little more than a few
trips to your local hardware store and hydroponic supply shop.

THE BASEMENT

"The theft of power in a grow op is phenomenal," said
Pons.

Down in the basement, the home's main power supply is intercepted
before it connects to the outside meter box and spliced to boost the
power supply without setting off alarm bells with BC Hydro. Trip
meters are hidden outside to shut down the power should anybody come
by to check the hydro meter.

The basement is also where most of the plants in a grow op are located
?" the bright lights can't be seen and the humidity, helped along with
thick plastic stapled to the walls, is less obvious.

Potted plants in soil are cheaper and easier to grow than setting up a
complex and expensive rotating hydroponic system. Occasionally,
growers build crude shelving units in the basement, the better to
stack plants and increase profit.

It takes about 10 to 13 weeks for the plant to mature, a timeline
helped along with the optimum conditions of a grow op, which are also
responsible for doubling marijuana's THC content in the past decade,
according to Pons.

Growers will install about 50 1,000-watt light bulbs, enough to fully
light nearly 80 homes, in the basement. Pons estimates a BC Hydro bill
for such tremendous wattage would likely run upwards of $3,000
monthly. A metal shroud (like the lights, shrouds are available at any
hydroponic store) is attached to each bulb so light from each is
distributed to about 50 plants.

A new electrical panel is built to handle the power overload. Lights
are plugged into a "wall" of sockets, with a 12- to 18-hour timer
attached to prevent overheating. When one room of lights goes out, a
timer in another grow room turns lights on. A $100-ballast, usually
one for each light, helps regulate the power supply and prevent fires.

THE BATHROOM

When cops bust a grow op, they usually find about 10 to 30 25-gallon
pails of various fertilizers and insecticides crowded into a bathroom.
"It's a lot of chemicals for one house," said Pons.

"This stuff isn't organic, it's not natural."

Large vats are set up in the bathtub and a hose is connected to the
shower head to mix water in. A pump is attached and hoses extend
throughout the home to water and "feed" the plants.

The chemicals are available at any hardware store but many growers
concoct their own mixes to save on costs.

And to make toxic disposal more efficient, growers remove the toilet
bowl, leaving a gaping hole in the bathroom floor and "they just dump
all the crap down there," Pons said.

THE FAMILY ROOM

Grow rooms are located throughout the house, where plants are packed
so densely that growers stand at the doorway and spray the chemicals
all over the plants ?" and the walls.

Pons recalled raiding a grow op and arresting a couple, as well as
their teenaged son, with whom they were "furious" not because he had a
significant amount of pot on him but because it was their pot.

"They knew how many chemicals they'd put into it. They don't care
about the end user or what he's breathing in."

A dozen standing fans keep moist air circulating while up to 10
industrial-size fans, costing about $500 each, suck air from the rooms
and push it into the attic, basically ruining the roof, said Pons.

Since the aim is to raise the crops as quickly as possible, growers
have found creative ways to pump more carbon dioxide into the house.
Growers usually disconnect a pipe from the furnace and redirect CO2
exhaust into the house. The more ambitious ones attach a CO2 generator
to a propane tank or simply leave CO2 tanks on a slow leak.

THE KITCHEN AND BEDROOMS

These are left empty, except for the few props strategically placed
near the windows to make the home look lived in. A highchair, computer
monitor (usually not even plugged in) and some toys (sometimes with
hidden cameras in them) usually do the trick, said Pons.

ACCESSORIES

"Growers are very much into swords and machetes, they have a real fear
of being attacked," said Pons as he pulled a long ninja-style sword
from its sheath. "Usually there's one in every room."

Carbon filters throughout the home absorb the strong smell of maturing
plants to help keep suspicious neighbours at bay.

MOVING IN... AND OUT

A grow op takes about a week to set up. Neighbours either don't know
what's happening right next door or they turn a blind eye, said Pons.
People who see but do nothing, he added, are welcoming organized crime
into their neighbourhoods.

When growers are apprehended, they are uncooperative ?" and fearless.
"There's no fear of the judicial system, they don't fear anyone," he
said. "They're strictly growing for cash, they don't care how good the
'quality' is, they don't care about the environment, how they're
endangering the structure, how it affects their neighbours or whether
it poses a risk to the community. "Getting apprehended is just
matter-of-fact, part of the process."

Tougher sentences are needed, Pons said, as is legislation regulating
the equipment needed to set up a grow op; he favours licensing
authorized hydroponic growers.