Jdspouse calls me to the TV this fine eve to see a big pot bust in Taipei City. They got lots of hydroponic plants, great roots, and some were five feet tall, budding beauties. Professional looking setup.
Anyone else catch this?
jdspliff 
Did they mention anything about Canadians? 
According to this article: tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/ ā¦ /7ad1.html
It was a Taiwanese guy. I donāt particularly get it. The article says he was growing this stuff in a luxury apartment, using the basement, 2nd, and 7th floors. Why you would be growing this stuff in downtown Taibei instead of some hidden shack in the mountains is beyond me.
On the TV news, the cops were blaming foreigners for technology transfer. No foreigners busted, or named mind you. 
To pay for your luxury apartment.
We furriners have the secret technology to GROW PLANTS. 
Thats ok. I couldnāt find my shoes this morning so I just blamed it on foreigners.
I didnāt catch this news story, but in the night market recently I was surprised to see a small head shop right out in hte open, with a wide array of bongs, pipes, papers, etc. I was surprised (a) that itās legal to sell even paraphenalia in Taiwan (except that most people here wouldnāt even recognize the stuff), and (b) that thereās much of a market for bongs here (at least compared to deviate Western nations).
whew! Glad to see you here. I was getting worried. 
I figured you were waiting for me to join in.
I admit, I used to have a great fondness for the stuff, but all that has changed in Taiwan. Clean for 7 years now. 
As for why one would grow the stuff in an expensive apartment, I agree with FOB. Not surprising to me at all. A: thatās where he lives. B: to pay for hte place. If heās got operations on three floors of the place he must have been making very good money. A guy I knew had an indoor operation in California about 2 x 3 meters that was bringing in about US$50,000/yr. If this guy had the proper equipment, connections to sell the stuff, and knew what he was doing, he could have been earning three times that, or more. That would sure help with the rent. The problem is, he probably had too many friends, acquaintances and customers traipsing through his house and Iāll bet the cops learned of the place from one of his visitors.
Note: of course Iām not advocating cultivation or use of marijuana. That would be wrong.
grass is healthier than binglang right? wouldnt it be great if they just switched them over so all the binglang booths was selling ready rolled spliffs? wouldnt do much for productivityā¦but would be a boost for the munchie industryā¦
I saw a number of vendors at the various Taipei night markets selling x-rated videos and sex toys. I thought Taiwanese people donāt do things like thatā¦ only us dirty, perverted foreigners. Anyway, strangely enough some of the stalls were manned by kids while mommy and daddy were a few stalls down doing something more important like selling dumplings. 
Oh no! Police sirens! Quickā¦ flush, flush, flush.
Ah, wait on, just my alarm clock.
[quote=āalmas johnā]Oh no! Police sirens! Quickā¦ flush, flush, flush.
Ah, wait on, just my alarm clock.[/quote]
Good grief, man, you know you will sleep a lot better if you get that āmaple leafā off yer back pack!
In Australia people switched to growing at home under lights, despite the near perfect growing conditions outdoors, in order to prevent the likes of little twerps jumping your fence and knocking off the crop. Apparently the cops are now savvy to sudden spikes in electricity bills as the grow lights turn on. Meanwhile, the little bastards are knocking on the doors of people they suspect may have an indoor operation and are threatening to call the cops if they donāt get some green across their palms. Grounds for murder in my book.
HG
Grounds for murder? Smart kids I say. They shouldnt be growing it in the first place so they deserve stuff like that and anything else that happens.
Same in Northern Cal, except the little twerps are law enforcement.
[quote]NORTHERN MENDOCINO COUNTY, Calif. ā In the waning days of a record season, a helicopter buzzes treetops here in a remote corner of the āEmerald Triangle,ā redwood country notorious as the USAās premier producer of marijuana.
State narcotics officers from CAMP ā Campaign Against Marijuana Planting ā are searching for āgardensā to eradicate and find six on a warm, cloudless day.
They strap onto a 150-foot cable dangling from the chopper, drop into the pot patches, hack down the plants and bundle them for the chopper to haul back to a landing zone.
Perhaps $500,000 worth of Americaās favorite illegal drug is trucked off for burial. Itās not a big day by CAMP standards: 813 plants that fill a pickup bed. In this ever-growing illicit market, agents routinely find plots of 5,000 and 10,000 plants that require dump trucks to dispose of.
In the 2005 growing season, CAMP says it so far has destroyed more plants than ever ā 1.1 million worth $4.5 billion on the street, up from 621,000 plants last year. But agents still lost ground to growers. . .
Todayās high potency weed is so valuable ā $5,000 or more for a pound of buds on the East Coast ā that big operators employ armed guards who camp in pot gardens for months, nurturing plants that grow to 15 feet and taller. . .[/quote]
usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ā¦ over_x.htm
A California narcotics officer confiscates marijuana plants in Mendocino County.
While the above article is interesting, what it doesnāt mention is that govt crackdowns on outdoor gardens have led to a great increase in indoor gardens, which also produce large quantities of extremely high quality weed.
The indoor grower I knew back home was a skillful handyman, so he tapped into the electric line just before the meter, so he had free electric for his room full of halide lights and there was no increase in his electric usage. Thereās no way I would mess around with live electric lines, but this guy really knew what he was doing. In addition to checking electric bills, the cops also do infrared scans on houses from outside to see if unusual heat is being generated. And of course theyāll snoop around as close as they can legally on the sidewalk, etc, or even illegally walking around the house sniffing for the stuff. As harvest approaches, the pungent buds can easily be smelled a good distance from outside the house. But, I believe those tactics are almost always used only to confirm information provided by snitches ā āfriendsā, acquaintances or customers who have been in the house and seen the garden ā prior to the cops seeking a search warrant to raid the house.
marijuana is a foreign plant.
The biggest problem with growing it in your house or anywhere is the fact that eventually somebody will say something to someone else. Sometimes even under police coersion. Make a dealā¦
I figured it out once: a small room with a three crop rotation in it could be pulling in 250,000 a month, easy. Imagine the hassle and stress of having it in your house and never allowing anyone inside, scared about that knock on the door, scared that there will be a fire when you are out, etc.
Stuff is worth more than gold!
Plus, itās just wrong. Itās illegal, immoral and it corrupts our nationās youth. :no-no:
I often ask myself, what would Jesus do? 
Would he be holed up in luxury apt crammed with thick gardens of plants covered with big, fat, hairy, purple, pungent buds, dripping with intoxicating resin . . .
hmmmm. . .