Richland & Pasco Police Make Big Marijuana Busts

[Wilbur]

Richland and Pasco Police make some big marijuana busts. Both departments seize roughly 150 marijuana plants, and pounds of processed pot potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It all started in Richland on Wednesday. Members of Richland's Proactive Anti-Crime Team or PACT snuffed out pot plants growing inside a someone's home and the investigation lead them to Pasco where they picked up pot ready to sell worth thousands.

It's known as marijuana, grass, weed, and pot... regardless what you call it it's illegal.

Richland police seized 49 plants growing in a crawl space at 152 Englewood Drive in Richland. Police arrested 22-year-old Ira Taylor for allegedly making and delivering the stash. And officers are glad to get it off the street.

"There's a potential for thousands of dollars worth of sales here and that could potentially involve a number of kids who could get their hands on this or a number of other people out their using this product," said Sgt. Dan Phillips, Richland Police Department.

But during the PACT investigation, officers learned the home at 4209 Riverhill Drive in Pasco might be growing pot too. Sure enough, when Pasco Police searched the house they found nearly 100 plants starting to grow worth roughly $200,000, and 8 lbs of harvested pot worth an additional $25,000.

Officers arrested 32-year-old Dustin Johnson and 27-year-old Katherine Rhodes.

Police said they don't see home grown marijuana very much, but the demand for the drug is going up.

"It used to be you could buy marijuana at $650 a pound, type of thing. Now it's running upwards of $3500 to $4000 a pound depending on what type of marijuana it is," said Capt. Jim Raymond, Pasco Police Department.

Police don't know how many more growers are out in the Tri-Cites, but they don't think these two are the only ones.


Newshawk: User - 420 Magazine
Source: KNDO/KNDU
Pubdate: 8 December 2006
Copyright: 2006 WorldNow and KNDO/KNDU
Contact: KNDO/KNDU Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA | Home
Website: KNDO/KNDU Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA | Home