DEA Holds 119 in Crackdown on Indoor Pot Growing

WASHINGTON —  Drug agents staged dozens of raids nationwide Thursday, arresting 119 people on charges of growing marijuana indoors or selling equipment for it, and seizing 65 indoor groves, the Drug Enforcement Administration said.

In addition, the agents raided 22 stores that sell the equipment for growing marijuana indoors, seizing and boarding up seven or eight of them, said DEA spokesman Frank Shults, who provided the figures as of early evening for the raids in Operation Green Merchant.

The DEA had planned to raid a total of 65 commercial businesses in 22 states as well as more than 100 indoor cultivation sites in 46 states on Thursday. The raids continued into the night.

A marijuana legalization advocate said the raids were just “a publicity stunt.”

A law enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said earlier in the day that federal agents had expected to make only 100 arrests on Thursday. In the previous month, 112 people had been arrested in connection with the same investigation.

“We have established through the advertising and other means that these stores do sell the indoor cultivation apparatus and give advice about its use for the cultivation of marijuana,” Shults said. “They openly do it.”

The DEA used undercover agents in every store to determine whether the owners knew the equipment--such as lighting, irrigation and ventilation apparatus--was being used for indoor marijuana cultivation, the source said.

The stores are in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The only four states where no raids were planned on indoor cultivation sites were Hawaii, Nebraska, North Dakota and West Virginia.

Doug McVay of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the raids on stores were “a publicity stunt, a largely ineffective one,” and “silly, really silly.”

“I can understand the DEA’s frustration,” McVay said. “It’s true, some of this equipment is being used for (indoor marijuana) cultivation. On the other hand, dirt is used for indoor cultivation. I don’t think we’re going to stop people from selling dirt.”

An increasing number of U.S. marijuana growers have been moving their plants indoors because of extensive aerial surveillance that enables authorities to spot drugs grown outside.

“We are trying to send the message to all those people in the United States who have been cultivating marijuana that they are violating the law, they will be caught, they will be prosecuted and, if found guilty, they will serve time,” Shults said.

Domestic suppliers produce about 25% of the marijuana consumed in the United States.

The DEA estimated that domestic production increased from 2,100 tons in 1986 to more than 4,350 tons in 1988.