New Law Would Toughen Penalties for Drug Growers
Tallahassee, Florida — Attorney General Bill McCollum Tuesday unveiled a legislative proposal to fight the increasing threat that marijuana grow houses pose to neighborhoods throughout Florida. The Marijuana Grow House Eradication Act also contains powerful child protection provisions including enhanced penalties for those who have a child present at a grow house and enhanced penalties for those who have illegal drugs in close proximity to children under the age of three.
In 2006, law enforcement detected marijuana grow houses in 41 of Florida's 67 counties, ranking Florida second only to California in the amount of grow houses.
Many marijuana growers have moved from rural fields to sophisticated growing operations in the suburbs of Florida. This cultivation shift has been accompanied by new techniques to vastly increase the drug's potency. This extremely potent form of marijuana contains up to 15 times the amount of THC, the addictive chemical found in marijuana, than marijuana common 20 years ago. Grow house marijuana has a street value of $4,000-$6,000 per pound and can be traded pound for pound for cocaine.
The legislation, sponsored by Senator Steve Oelrich (R-Gainesville) and Representative Nick Thompson (R-Fort Myers), creates a tough new penalty for those who grow 25 plants or more.
This legislative change specifically targets for-profit growers who exploit Florida's current trafficking standards of 300 plants and the federal threshold of 100 plants to avoid prison time.
Additionally, the bill creates a new penalty against those who own a house for the purpose of cultivating marijuana, as well as a new penalty for those who live in or are the caretakers of marijuana grow houses.
Currently, law enforcement around the state is required to store cumbersome grow house equipment in order to preserve it as evidence. In order to address this growing storage burden, the bill allows a photograph or video recording of equipment used in the cultivation of a marijuana plant to be considered as evidence in the prosecution of the crime. The bill will also allow law enforcement to destroy grow house equipment upon the completion of all investigations and provides immunity from any civil liability to law enforcement for the destruction of the grow house equipment. | 
