Marijuana growing in suburban America

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:18:25 GMT

By Rebecca Hennes; West Side high school

Last Tuesday investigators in Liberty County uncovered the largest marijuana grow operation the county has ever seen. Authorities believe the operation is connected with a Mexican drug cartel, but they have yet to find any suspects. According to Professor Mark Jones of Rice University , the likeliness that a drug cartel is connected to this site is not high. "This would be somewhat unusual behavior by the cartels," said Jones. "Generally they tend to produce in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America and then export to the United States . They usually don’t set up operations here because of the risk involved." Jones is on the right track. Suburban growing is on the rise as marijuana growing continues to spread into rural America . The popular controversial comedy “Weeds” is a perfect example. Suburban mom Nancy Botwin lives a normal life with her two kids in her huge white house in her huge gated community selling, well, pot. Need better evidence? A couple of weeks ago I saw a home in Richmond on the news and it ended up being a grow house. More and more of these homes are being uncovered in and around Houston , with projected ones to come. Reality is, people are aware of the skeptics and are willing to test them. Marijuana growth in suburban homes is on the rise - leaving people to ponder what really lies behind the closed doors of their neighbor’s houses.