Florida Bill Would Create Penalties Targeting Marijuana Grow Houses
"As Florida's Attorney General, my priority is protecting our children and our communities from the devastation of illegal drugs," said Attorney General McCollum. "This legislation targets those who grow marijuana for profit."
Florida is second only to California in the number of grow houses discovered last year. Almost two-thirds of Florida's counties, 41 out of 67, had at least one grow house in their boundaries. One pound of marijuana cultivated with these techniques has a street value equivalent to a pound of cocaine.
Growing 25 or more marijuana plants will earn a new, tougher penalty under the Act. Florida's current definition of trafficking has a minimum of 300 plants, while the federal government considers a for-profit grower a trafficker with only 100 plants. For-profit growers have taken advantage of those limits in the past. Owning a house specifically for the cultivation of marijuana will result in increased penalties as well. The bill also makes a provision for seized grow house equipment, which is currently housed for preservation of evidence, to be destroyed by law enforcement without any civil liberty after photographs or video recording of the evidence is taken.
Senator Steve Oelrich, who co-sponsored the bill with Representative Nick Thompson, spoke at the unveiling of the bill, saying the goal of the legislation is to stem the spread of illegal drugs in Florida at the unveiling of the legislation. "Every time law enforcement can detect a grow house and arrest those involved with it, less crime will be on our streets." Oelrich said. "This legislation will provide law enforcement with critical tools to get these narcotics out of our kids' hands and put drug traffickers behind bars."
Thompson added, "Under this legislation we are clearly telling drug dealers, 'if you grow, you go!'"
The legislation will be heard during Florida's 2008 Legislative Session.
Florida Attorney General's Office, McCollum, Legislators and Law Enforcement Unveil Bill to Combat Marijuana Grow Houses
Published by Marissa Mason
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12 Comments
Post a CommentI myself do not even smoke, the biggest ignorant statement is "its a gate way drug" is entirely FALSE. Alchohol is a gate way drug, a killing machine, ect.. if your going to write an artical at least do your research. the only reason and i mean the only reasone it is illeagal is because you cannot tax it,regulate it, and it's verry easy to grow. Maybe you should write an artical on the number of deaths from alchohol vs the number of deaths from canabis,add cigaretts to it because i am highly addicted to them and cannot quit as of yet, god idiots really do anoy me and sorry for the typo's ty.
well said
sorry got cut of part 2. They call cannibis a gateway drug why. It is because when a person go's to buy cannibis they go to a drug dealer and the drug dealer dos'nt just want to sell you cannibis they want you to buy crack, coke, herrion, crystal meth, and many other things and even guns. That's only one reason why we sould take their gateway drug away by leagalizing cannibis. One more reason is with the sudden loss of money the drug dealers would face and the increase of tax money from leagal cannibis law enforcement would have a great advantage over criminal organizations. With extra money they could infact do more then they ever have before to stop criminal organizations.
please give me any reason why we should not leagalize cannibis sorry for bad my bad english i'm half asleep
You will solve nothing threw this bill and as far as kids go you will only force them to go to drug dealers who dont just sell harmless weed but sell meth, coke,crack, and many other things. Infact you should be thankful for the people who just sell weed and grow it and as far as the 15 times stronger means you only have to smoke less and that sounds to me like it would even be more healthy. I dont think kids should smoke weed by the way but i don't think you can stop them threw laws. You would be better off spending money on schools and after school progams that would keep kids out of real trouble.
If weed was leagal you could hurt the drug organizations worse then you ever could with new laws. What do i mean by this is that cannibis brings alot of money to theese drug dealers and to suddenly take this away from them would make it hard to keep any kind of illegal operation going. They call cannibis a gate way drug why is this its because when people go to buy cannibis from
this was a waste of my time
What happened to "To Protect and Serve" cops are militant and combative these days. If you're not a cop you're a criminal! They need to roll up a fatty and relax!
WOW!!! What a mis-allocation of MY tax dollars!
This is a pathetic excuse for a bill. When are we going to realize that cannabis is a safe substance? It has been for thousands of years. There are still no reported deaths...NOT ONE! Associating crime with cannabis growing just doesn't make sense. What makes crime are irrational laws that allow police to intrude upon, steal from, arrest, and kidnap children from people who other than the fact they had a few plants growing, were loving parents. The result is law enforcement is able to shoot for a bigger budget, due to this dreamed up fear and let's face it, make a lot of money from confiscating otherwise harmless folks personal property. Jails are filled with cannabis users while people who really commit crimes remain unpunished or are out on early release. Keep in mind, laws intended to pursue cannabis DIRECTLY translate to access to your home without regard for your right of the people to be secure in persons, houses, papers, and effects.
Bill's bill makes him look good in th
Thank God i live in California were we safe access to medical marijuana.
I stopped reading after:
"and new cultivation techniques are making it 15 times as potent as marijuana available 20 years ago."
People WAKE-UP!! Do you own research, stop buying the lies you are spoon-fed!!