back to article Dopey dope-growing dope smoked out by own dope dope-growing vid

A New Hampshire judge has jailed an Auburn dope-grower who inadvertently blew his cover in a series of YouTube vids of his marijuana cultivation operation. Police were alerted last year to Kyle Berry's handy online guides, but the cops did not require the services of Sherlock Holmes to lead them to his home's weed-packed …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    First rule of growing pot

    Don't tell anyone.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: First rule of growing pot

      The phrase you are searching for is :

      "Don't tell and don't sell" as that's the way 95%+ of growers get caught.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: First rule of growing pot

        You forgot one..

        1. Don't Tell

        2. Don't Sell

        3. Don't Smell

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: First rule of growing pot

          4. Don't use lots of leccy

          5. Don't give off a heat signature

          6. Don't do anything related online.

          7. Don't piss the <cartman>authoritahs</cartman> off in other ways

          8. Don't have anyone living with you

          1. MonkeyCee
            Thumb Up

            Re: First rule of growing pot

            1. Move to a country where it's not illegal.

            2. Ensure smell does not bother wife or neighbors

            3. Ensure leccy costs do not annoy wife

            4. If the cops ask, show them. Get them a nice cup of tea while they count up to 5.

            5. Don't sell.

          2. Sonny Jim

            Re: First rule of growing pot

            > 4. Don't use lots of leccy

            No electricity company in the world is going to go looking for what are probably their best customers and hand them over to the police. Much more likely that there will be approached by the police for the bills when they have other evidence.

    2. M Gale

      Re: First rule of growing pot

      I figured the first rule of Grow Club was the same as the second rule of Grow Club.

  2. AndrueC Silver badge
    Facepalm

    D'oh(pe)

  3. El Presidente

    Sent to Prison for Growing Plants

    Anyone else think that's disproportionate?

    Community service? Help the aged? Paint over graff tags? Sweep the frikkin' streets?

    Something useful and less dogmatic?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sent to Prison for Growing Plants

      The fitting punishment should have been community service, there are plenty of parks that need help with their horticulture.

      1. fearnothing
        Joke

        Re: Plenty of parks need help with their horticulture

        I'm sure he would be welcome as a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/05/cannabis-newport-council-flower-pots-pictures_n_3706672.html">gardener for Newport in Wales</a>.

      2. T. F. M. Reader

        Re: Sent to Prison for Growing Plants

        "help with their horticulture"

        Was this intentional, Sir? "You are carrying a wasted girl and a bag of fertilizer. You don't look like a horti-fucking-culturalist." Just couldn't get rid of the image and sound, and could not resist posting... Thank you...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sent to Prison for Growing Plants

      4 years is the maximum I believe, but you'll only do that if you are stupid enoungh to plead not guilty. One reason why many are sent down is for their own safety because they typically grow the stuff to pay off debts to other drug dealers. Between 1 and 2 years is typical period of time in the clink both to serve as a deterrant to others and as a neat way of cancelling debts to the local kingpings without them losing face.

      <Ahem>.............. apparently,

      1. Mr Anonymous

        Re: Sent to Prison for Growing Plants

        "period of time in the clink both to serve as a deterr[e]nt" works too, it's why prisons are so empty.

    3. Red Bren
      Coat

      Re: Sent to Prison for Growing Plants

      He was lucky he wasn't in Texas - they would have taken the weight of the entire plant, not just the drug-containing parts, the growing medium and even the plant pots, multiplied it by a massively exaggerated* "street" price for the pure product and claimed he was a billion dollar drug-lord and sent him to the chair.

      * Ok, maybe I'm massively exaggerating too...

      1. JustWondering
        Unhappy

        Re: Sent to Prison for Growing Plants

        Where I am, every plant is valued at over $1100 (CAN). If only I knew which street that was ...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sent to Prison for Growing Plants

        You're not exaggerating that much. They definitely DO use the entire weight of the plant in that part of the world. A plant that would produce around 6-10 oz of smokable material once dry weighs many times that at the point of seizure.

        The method of exaggerating the street value is equally simple. At that level (ie the grower) the weed (if sold) is sold by the kilo and ounce. When seized they work out the "street value" as if you're the end-point, lowest of the low, street/housing estate dealer who will sell it a gram at a time. In this way (lets say) 30-odd ounces, or around a kilo which the grower would sell at , say, 120-150/oz so around 4 grand/kilo quickly becomes circa £8400 a kilo at a per-gram-street-price. (prices works on 35 oz and assuming £10/g street value)

    4. Miek
      Linux

      Re: Sent to Prison for Growing Plants

      There's money to be made in the USA when sending people to jail. The privatised jails are full to bursting with drug addicts who are then used as cheap labour to produce number plates and other crap in sweat shops operated by these private prison businesses. There were also accusations of judges taking commission when sending down delinquents.

      Aside from that, just think of all the victims this nasty druggie must have hurt whilst growing a plant in his basement. Oh, the horror!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Problem with the US is that a lot of the prisons are private and the owners are paid per-head. Paid enough that they are a serious lobbying force; in addition to kicking back to the police forces/judges etc. Until that changes then people are going to continue to be sent to prison for silly shit. Rehabilitation has nothing to do with it...it's all about the cash.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/us-crime-kidsforcash-idUSTRE77A6KG20110811

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Seems like one of owners of those prisons has downvoted you. Personally I think it's pretty disgusting that slavery is alive and well in the US, in the form of profit-making prisons using forced labour. 3 strikes and you're a slave for life. Seeing as a drug offence is a felony, 3 joints can potentially get you locked up for life.

      Whereas next door in another state, it's legal! Fucking insane country!

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Smoking a joint != growing your own plants.

        1. M Gale

          Smoking a joint != growing your own plants.

          Yes, buying it from who-knows-where is certainly different to taking all of that out of the loop with your own tent and a rhino filter.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            You need to filter for rhinos? Damn. Can you get a spray or something if it turns out you've got rhinos?

            1. M Gale

              "You need to filter for rhinos? Damn. Can you get a spray or something if it turns out you've got rhinos?"

              I set myself up for that one, didn't I?

              Ahem, just in case you don't know, Rhino-brand carbon filters (along with RVK-brand inline ventilation fans and ONA-brand smell-gel air freshening) are, erm, quite highly recommended by people who might wish to remove certain powerful odours from the immediate atmosphere.

              So I hear, anyway. One moment, there's a police van outside and it looks like they're about to knock on the door. Excuse me!

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Nearly sorry about that and thanks for the information. I'm in Spain and the police generally ignore one or two plants if the grower is reasonably circumspect about things, so most grow operations here are outside in a quiet bit of the garden. Unfortunately, there's no way of being circumspect where I live, so I haven't tried it.

              2. Alan Brown Silver badge

                All the filtering in the world doesn't help when the grow op keeps popping the fuse of a local distrribution transformer.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Probably those fucking rhinos again...they'll gore anything.

                2. M Gale

                  All the filtering in the world doesn't help when the grow op keeps popping the fuse of a local distrribution transformer.

                  If you're dragging that much juice out of the grid, you're either doing it on an industrial scale, or doing it wrong.

                  There's people out there running grow tents for their own personal, on less than 150 watts. Why have a 400w or 1000w High Pressure Sodium bulb + ballast combo (and associated heat) when a 100w or 200w cluster of CFL grow-lamps does the job? You can even switch between high-K veg lamps and low-K bud lamps, if you're not just using feminized autos. Even the ventilation fan you'll typically run through an £80-£90 variac at 80-100 volts or so (assuming a 230v supply) to keep the noise level down. All it needs to do is slowly cycle the air out of your tent and through the filter, and you use negative pressure to keep the stink where it belongs.

                  Google "autoflowering" versus "photoperiod" if you're wondering what I mean by "feminized autos". If you're on this site and don't know what a variac is... oh just google it. Also known as a variable transformer. Think Steampunk Dimmer Switch, only minus the awful hum that dimmers induce in a circuit.

                  Me? Well, I'm quite legally clean, otherwise I wouldn't dare make comments like these on a web site. I just happen to know a thing or two.

            2. MonkeyCee
              Joke

              The worst part about a Rhino filter is cleaning it. Very angry animal the Rhino.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                I'm wondering now how a rhino filter would work. It'd have to be quite big which might have a negative effect on a surreptitious operation. Rhinos are not stopped by gauze or interesting fabrics.

      2. Euripides Pants
        Joke

        Re: Fucking insane country!

        Yup, we're hoping it'll curb the illegal alien problem...

      3. 7teven 4ect
        Black Helicopters

        ooohBAMMA luuurves warehousin' niggas 4 cash.

        *nigga is not more politically incorrect than 'dope', when 'dope' is used derogatively and nigga is used brotherly, before anyone complains.

      4. Alan Brown Silver badge

        "Personally I think it's pretty disgusting that slavery is alive and well in the US,"

        It's not just about slavery, it's also about systemic disenfranchisation of minorities.

        In the USA if you're a convicted felon (various crimes) you lose the right to vote - permanently.

    3. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Promotional incarceration

    So basically the guy paid $500 to be introduced to a large number of potential clients and given 8 months to cultivate the contacts and relationships he'll need when he gets released, to distribute his crop and grow the business.

    And the judge who gave him this opportunity said he wasn't smart.

    1. Anomalous Cowshed

      Re: Promotional incarceration

      At last someone sees it: the parting shot of the judge.

      But I would go further.

      Basically, what the judge said was this: You're going down, because you're dumb. It almost rhymes.

      From this, future courts might perhaps infer the following rules of precedent:

      - If you want to cultivate marijuana with utter impunity, you need to be clever

      or:

      - If you are clever, the Law will let you cultivate marijuana with utter impunity

      And in the supreme court, the reasoning might run as follows:

      - What the judge of the lower court inferred was that law enforcement should be tailored so as to encourage cleverness in America, with the differential in cleverness between the perpetrators and the law enforcers de facto enabling cleverer people to do things that would be impossible, i.e. prohibited, for idiots, such as grow marijuana.

    2. JustWondering

      Re: Promotional incarceration

      The only problem is he has also met leaders of the local merchants association who will insist he becomes a member in their group before he can open the doors.

  6. wowfood
    Headmaster

    "manufacturing a controlled drug".

    Manufacturing

    The process of converting raw materials, components, or parts into finished goods that meet a customer's expectations or specifications. Manufacturing commonly employs a man-machine setup with division of labor in a large scale production.

    vs

    growing

    (of a living thing) Undergo natural development by increasing in size and changing physically; progress to maturity.

    (of a plant) Germinate and develop.

    In the state of growing it marijuana is considered a herb, and only a drug once it's been dried / cut up etc. So technically he pled guilty to something he didn't do. He was actually guilty of growing a herb that could be processed into a controlled drug.

    I personally consider pot no more dangerous than alcohol.

    1. Tom 7

      Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

      Try starting a business and you'll see why growing cannabis is illegal - its so sodding easy that you dont have to pay management consultants, just pizza delivery people. Unless you earn enough to bribe politicians then you will have your pips squeezed at every opportunity.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Velv
        Childcatcher

        Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

        Prof. Nutt is a perfect example of politicians and governments - you higher the finest experts in the world to advise you, but if you don't like what they say, you sack them and find someone else.

        It's about time this country woke up and smelt the coffee (caffeine's a drug) of acceptable "drugs" (alcohol, tobacco, dextromethorphan (Benylin)) and started making some tax from it. Legalised manufacture/growth and distribution should ensure a (comparatively) safe product is being used (well we seem to think the current legal lot is comparatively safe if the guidelines are followed, so why not others).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

          They're basically legalising marajuana in Colorado, unfortunately they have forgotten the bit where it's regulated.

          I saw a documentary the other day where a business-man was gearing up to sell MJ products (mostly candy/sweets etc.) and was shocked when ONE small chocolate (or 500ml fruit flavour drink) was the strength of 10-15 joints!! Talk about reckless. That will just make things so much worse.

          If you smoke, you can only smoke so much before you're comatose, there's no way, even in my youth, that I could smoke 10-15 joints in 1-2 hours, yet that's what they are going to be providing the public with. The warnings were also tiny or non-existent on the packaging.

          If a child were to eat 2 or 3 of these (or an adult for that matter) in about 2 hours time they will be on a trip to the hospital and assuming their heart doesn't stop beating they'll be totally tripping for days and probably psychologically damaged.

          I'm all for _educated_ legal use of MJ, but that is just going to make the whole situation worse. They should get the regs sorted first before it becomes available.

          1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
            Boffin

            Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

            If a child were to eat 2 or 3 of these (or an adult for that matter) in about 2 hours time they will be on a trip to the hospital and assuming their heart doesn't stop beating they'll be totally tripping for days and probably psychologically damaged.

            A slight exaggeration, perhaps? The LD50 lethal dose is significantly higher than you suppose - apparently 42mg per kilogram of body weight in rats. The more likely outcome would be hallucinations for several hours. It's not like people have never eaten cannabis before and documented the results. Whilst I'm not reccomending that people do this, you are being needlessly alarmist.

            1. Tom 38
              WTF?

              Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

              Eating 'raw' cannabis will do very very little, you need to dissolve the cannabinoids into an oil based solution so that it can be ingested, usually by grinding to a fine powder and heating in oil.

              Even if you take a massive quantity of cannabis like this, the effects aren't going to be noticeably different from having a large amount of cannabis, most effects will wear off within 2-3 hours. The idea that you can be totally tripping for days is comical.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

                "Eating 'raw' cannabis will do very very little"

                Who said it was raw? It's been processed into an edible sweet.

                I've made cookies in the past and each one had enough finely ground cannabis to be equivalent to to one joint.

                Effects would arrive about an hour and half later, and last for 4-6 hours.

                I can't actually imagine what it would be like to have the equivalent of 15 joints delivered in the same way.

                I also smoked a camberwell carrot of my own at uni that contain 1/8 hash and 1/8 grass. I was stoned for 3 days.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Windows

                  Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

                  "I also smoked a camberwell carrot of my own at uni that contain 1/8 hash and 1/8 grass. I was stoned for 3 days."

                  Wankered for 3 days on weed??? Methinks there was more than weed in your carrot...

                  I have stuffed an INORDINATE amount of thc into my self for the past 30 years, been to the 'dam and smoked the BEST cannabis the world has to offer and have NEVER been stoned for 3 days...

                  1. Sir Runcible Spoon
                    Childcatcher

                    Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

                    This one has got me thinking since I've ingested in the past (when I gave up smoking).

                    It's hard to get hard and fast figures, but averaging all the info out I think it would take around 15-30mg of THC to be considered a 'single' medical dose (of decent quality I presume). I would think that this would get a 'non toker' pretty stoned for around 2-3 hours. Again, hard to be precise but this sounds reasonable.

                    I've also looked up what is going to be available in Colorado as the poster above mentioned. Again, hard to get specific info, but it seems that products are being marketed as being anywhere between 50-250mg per item, even if it is just a chocolate sweet.

                    I found one online shop in colorado that apparently won some award in 2010 (@Kushcon)for strongest edible at around 48mg.

                    If sweets are being made that can be 250mg, then I think the risk of children eating them is quite real. I have no idea what effect it would have on a 5 year old to ingest enough THC to knock out a hardened stoner, but it does seem to be something the 'pro legalisation' people should take into account - otherwise it will be banned again as fast as you can say 'whinging mothers'.

                    1. wowfood

                      Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

                      Probably why they're doing it. Legalize on a trial basis and watch people go mad. Ban it again as dangerous because it was unregulated.

                      Personally I'd say they'd be better off legalising it in a similar way to cigs. Pre-rolled joints, not mixed with anything else behind a counter sold like cigars etc. Keeps quality high, risk low, and taxes rolling in. Make sure law is passed so it can only be used on your own premesis (not in public anywhere)

                      1. M Gale

                        Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

                        "Probably why they're doing it. Legalize on a trial basis and watch people go mad. Ban it again as dangerous because it was unregulated."

                        Legalize on a trial basis, watch the plan backfire as people fail to go mad and violent crime drops due to people being far too content to sit on the sofa munching pizza and cookies than go out, get leathered on cheap lager and start a riot.

                        The awesome thing about weed is it's not like you're going to accidentally brew methanol if you get it wrong. If it does get legalized more widely though, the thing to do is challenge the convention that "getting high on weed" == "smoking weed". The "smoking" part is the only dangerous bit, and it's entirely unnecessary.

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