Little Green Houses 2

Dave Says:Whew, responses pouring in now! A couple of folks were miffed at the stiff time-line, as in, this has to be done NOW! Some folks out for summer vacation. Some are peaved at me for not waiting...(tick ...tock..........tick....)

In journalism, we had these stories on standby; like, when a former president dies or a major celeb. Every newspaper, and I know I am not telling anybody anything they don’t know, has a massive splurge ready to go immediately to print when Larry King goes the way of all life, God Bless the man and may it never happen, or when Martha Stewart goes, or when Tony Danza goes, for that matter. And may they all see 1,000 (example, please)

The same principle applies in publishing I would imagine. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be such a quick turn-around for a Michael Jackson book.

Then there are stories like this one: that you literally can't see coming until they are right in front of you: in which the content is so hot, yet the landscape could change within eight months. Right?

Now, we’re talking about grow houses in Florida. A year from now, we’re seeing something new: perhaps a year from now, meth houses see an explosion. (Personally I’d much rather grow houses, but without the organized crime. No one wants to live next to that.) Point being, some stories are just too damned hot to wait for the arcane machinery to catch up. I am sorry but if publishing wants it, now is the time. Nuff said. Here’s more of the proposal:

Copyright David A. Kearns Aug. 4 2009

2. The Market.Tallahassee Florida, 2008. State enforcement officials proudly announced that the annual, statewide seizures of homegrown marijuana had a street value of more than $41.6 million. Let that figure sink in. Give it a minute if you need to. That’s just what they captured, not what was grown in one year in little houses, all over the Sunshine state.This information came while Gov. Charlie Christ and lawmakers in his camp were celebrating stiffer statutes enacted to slam the door on so called “grow houses;” residential properties modified to handle the covert, high-intensity cultivation of marijuana.

If we accept that law enforcement had successfully captured 40 percent of the illegal home-grown market over the course of the previous year - a first in Florida law enforcement history; eliminating 40 percent of any crime problem in one year - this would mean home-grown marijuana in Florida is likely a $100 million dollar-a-year business, putting the indoor pot farms on a par with fish farms, and certainly way ahead of solar power sales in the state named after sunshine, and brimming with fish ponds. If we accept that police had only captured 20 percent of the crop, or even 10 percent, as is far more likely, pot grown under intense household conditions now begins to show itself as a statewide industry perhaps worth as much as $400 million per year.Looking at the market from the bottom up it represents the perfect recession-era hand-hold up and out of the abyss to the primary producer or the small, mom-and-pop operator. Perhaps outwardly at least. Looking at it from the top down, it is an opportunity for organized crime the like of which we have not seen since prohibition gave rise to Al Capone.

And with Freddie Mae and Fannie Mack holding a $5.4 trillion inventory of mortgaged assets, the math says the problem or the opportunity, depending on your point of view, will only continue to grow. In fact, it’s growing, right now as you read these words. With that come the guns, the threat of rippers, the security measures, the booby traps. With it comes the increased burden on law enforcement to do something about all the aforesaid.