Gulfport Doctor Faces Arrest After Marijuana Raid
Veto F. Roley
December 15, 2007
The Mississippi Press
VANCLEAVE — Officers with the Narcotics Task Force of Jackson County raided two homes Wednesday for marijuana production, including the home of a Gulfport doctor.
The two homes are less than two miles apart on Jim Ramsey Road. A news release said the two cases are not connected.
According to the release, officers raided the home of Dr. Kathleen Keimig and her common-law husband, Jeffery Ingram, at 6209 Jim Ramsey Road.
Sgt. Curtis Spiers said Friday that Keimig is an emergency room doctor at Memorial Hospital. He said that he did not know Ingram's occupation.
Spiers said the two are currently vacationing in Mexico and are expected to be arrested when they arrive home.
According to the release, agents seized about 18 marijuana plants, each more than six feet tall. Additionally, agents seized "implements used to enhance (the marijuana plant's) growth from a green house on the property as well as a substantial number of marijuana and drug paraphernalia from their home."
The investigation of Keimig and Ingram took two years, according to the release.
Agents seized 35 plants in the second raid at 7904 Jim Ramsey Road on property owned by Billy Flurry and Taryn Flurry, according to the release.
The release says the plants were discovered in a spare bedroom of the Flurry's mobile home. Along with the plants, the release says agents seized a "large amount of equipment used in the operation."
The release says that the Flurrys were not home during the raid. Spiers said he expects the couple to turn themselves into authorities early next week.
Spiers said the two raids were on hydroponic growing operations, where the plant is grown in water rather than soil. Aside from being more difficult to detect because the plants are indoors, he said the advantage of growing plants inside buildings is that growers can control the environment.
"This is the preferred way to grow or produce marijuana," he said, noting that Task Force agents had uncovered three marijuana growing operations in the two miles between 6209 Jim Ramsey Road and 7904 Jim Ramsey Road.
According to the release, agents seized four marijuana plants from a residence at 7201 Jim Ramsey Road in October.
Because growers can control the climate and growing environment, the concentration of THC, which is the active ingredient of marijuana, is greater in hydroponic home-grown plants than in field-grown plants.
Mexican marijuana, Spiers said, contains about 4 percent THC. Hydroponic marijuana, he said, contains 17 to 20 percent THC.
As a result, he said, the hydroponic plant is costlier on the street, going for $4,000 a pound compared to $700 a pound for Mexican marijuana. | 
