In foreclosure-plagued Vegas, empty homes go to pot

[Liberal_in_LA]

Las Vegas has a pot home problem. And like many of the region's maladies, it's tied to the housing slump.

Last year, authorities took down 153 indoor grow sites in Nevada and seized more than 13,000 plants, compared with 18 sites and 1,000 plants in 2005, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said. (By comparison, California busted 791 indoor sites last year.)

"You can't have crime without opportunity," said William Sousa, a criminologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "And all those empty homes present an opportunity for criminal activity."

Major cultivators spend tens of thousands of dollars turning cheap homes into greenhouses. Small-scale growers transform bedrooms into grow rooms, as Fredrica Ballard, 43, and her two adult sons are accused of doing in a foreclosure-turned-rental home. The Ballards have pleaded not guilty to possession charges, and their attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pot-homes-20111113,0,574959.story

[n2doc]

1. Up in Smoke n/t

[Iggo]

2. Legalize it. (n/t)

[JNelson6563]

4. Sometimes the very best answers are, indeed, the simplest.

:toast:

[CrispyQ]

6. Frame the debate - remind people it was once legal.

[Iggo]

7. I like it!

:fistbump:

[JNelson6563]

3. When will people learn?

If you want to get high you have to address it legally. The only legal drug dealers out there are doctors and their product comes from big pharma. Get to the doctor, let him/her give you drugs that you will pay a lot of money for. If you're like many out there you will be in for a long term experience that will likely not end easily or painlessly.

Leave the drugs (including alcohol) to the professionals kiddies! Or we'll throw your ass into the gaping maw of the prison system.

This system is screwed up.

Julie

[Ezlivin]

5. That's capitalism in action, folks

You like the idea of a free market, but not its execution.

The "illegal" pot grows are irrefutable evidence that there is money to be made in a particular market.

It's a pity that our leadership is loath to turn this black market into a legitimate market and thus harness the untaxed money that flows so energetically through it.

[coalition_unwilling]

8. When I was taking Microeconomics 101 (the gateway course

for Econ), pot and alcohol (during Prohibition) were used as case studies to demonstrate that even so-called 'black markets' obey the fundamental law of supply and demand. Essentially, in a black market, the risk premium of arrest causes the supply curve to shift sharply leftward and its slope to steepen, such that the price for a given quantity demanded of the illegal substance is far higher than it would be in the absence of the laws prohibiting said substance that thereby create said black market.

Ever since then, I have favored full legalization (with accompanying governmental regulation of quality).