From the e-mails, voice mails and other sources: GONE TO POT - I rarely react to letters to the editor regarding my columns, but this one merits further comment: "Arresting local marijuana growers just helps Mexican drug cartels." The author criticized law enforcement for busting the largest indoor marijuana-growing operation ever discovered in Stanislaus County - so sophisticated that it was capable of producing roughly $8 million a year in finished product. "Eliminating local marijuana growers only to have them replaced by Mexican drug cartels that sell cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine is not a good thing," wrote Robert Sharpe, a policy analyst for the Common Sense for Drug Policy organization in Washington, D.C. [continues 284 words]
As pot operations go, this one impressed even the agents who shut it down and arrested the six people who ran it. It wasn't just the numbers: A facility south of Modesto that could produce about $8 million worth of marijuana annually. Or the 2,000 plants seized. Or the53 pounds of dope found ready to be packed and sold at a street value of $4,000 a pound. (They could have packaged it in smaller amounts, labeled it as "value added" and charged even more. Hey, it works with baby carrots.) [continues 725 words]
Considering their knee-jerk reactions last week, Modesto's City Council members seemed awfully, well, mellow Tuesday by the time they formally addressed the issue of medicinal marijuana shops in town. Medicinal pot, when recommended by licensed physicians, is legal in California. Local municipalities can license or ban the shops where it is sold. When one opened in Modesto recently, it caught the council by surprise and immediately became an agenda item for Tuesday's meeting. From the initial comments, it appeared that the council might immediately vote to ban that kinds of shop. [continues 602 words]
A 34-year-old tile worker is accused of giving marijuana to at least three Modesto boys then sexually molesting them, Modesto police said Friday. Raymond Lee DeWitt faces 35 sexual assault counts after being arrested at his central Modesto home Thursday night. DeWitt was booked into the Stanislaus County Jail, where he was being held in lieu of $84,000 bail. He faces three counts of sexual assault, 16 counts of sexual acts with children under 16 years and 16 counts of sexual acts with children 10 years younger than the suspect. [continues 241 words]
Drug agents filled a U-Haul van with more than 1,000 marijuana plants, $20,000 in specialized lighting and watering equipment, and 41/2 pounds of ready-to-sell drugs seized Wednesday from a facility in south Modesto. The marijuana greenhouse had been disguised as a welding shop. The plants, at maturity, could have produced at least $5 million worth of packaged marijuana, said Art Longoria, an agent with the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. Agents began investigating a statewide money-laundering scheme six months ago and it led them to Modesto, said Sgt. Doug Leo of the Stanislaus Drug Enforcement Agency. [continues 519 words]
