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THE WORD "hydro" usually refers to the high-grade top-quality marijuana currently popular with rap stars and college students. And that just burns hydroponic equipment dealer Paul Trace.
Trace, 39, makes his living selling $300 growing lamps, $15-a-bottle organic fertilizer and $200 water circulation systems to professional gardeners and farmers in Deptford, N.J.
It's the same stuff commonly used by marijuana dealers who grow their stash at home.
"Hydroponics does not need or deserve this bad reputation," said Trace, owner of Tasty Harvest Hydroponics off of Route 41. "We have to distance ourselves from these idiots."
Although Trace said he would never sell his merchandise to anyone he believed was remotely connected to the illegal plant, authorities keep a close eye on his legal industry because of its connection to home-grown marijuana dealers.
On Friday, Fire Capt. John Taylor, 53, and firefighter Rey Rubio, 42, died fighting a Port Richmond rowhouse fire after being entangled in a web of lamp wires used to grow marijuana. Officials believe the flames started in Daniel Brough's basement closet where he was growing at least a dozen 3-foot marijuana plants beneath hot high-powered lamps.
Brough, 35, is now charged with third-degree murder, marijuana possession and involuntary manslaughter for having the makeshift drug garden in his home on Belgrade Street near Orthodox which inadvertently led to the death of the two firemen from Engine 28 Company.
"It is dangerous," Trace said about using hydroponic equipment in a cramped closet. Hydroponics is the science of growing plants without soil.
News of Brough's murder charge quickly spread around pro-marijuana circles. Dan Vinkovetsky, Cultivation editor of High Times Magazine in New York noted the tragedy of Friday's blaze but said if marijuana was "legal and out in the open" the firemen's death could have been avoided.
"The fire they were fighting was caused by poorly installed faulty wires and not marijuana," Vinkovetsky said.
A Philadelphia weed dealer working the Center City scene said more of his colleagues are growing marijuana themselves, cutting out the middlemen (low-level suppliers).
"Some people do a thorough job," said the dealer about the different indoor setups he has seen. "But some people try to get greedy and add more lighting."
Cops are noticing the growing attraction to home-grown marijuana. Since the beginning of the year, Philadelphia police said they seized $7.3 million worth of the drug. Their biggest bust of home-grown marijuana was in May when narcotic officers confiscated hundreds of plants in homes in University City and West Kensington.
"It is relatively inexpensive if you did it right," said narcotics Inspector Joe Sullivan about the makeshift indoor gardens which require about $1,000 for two grow lamps and plant nutrients.
Growing marijuana indoors and controlling the environment creates a more potent batch of the drug which leads to a higher street value, Sullivan said.
And the whole state is catching on to growing marijuana hydroponically.
In March, agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, busted an eight-room barn in Adams County near Gettysburg that housed over 700 plants priced at $2,000 a pound, said Richard Ford, DEA agent in charge of the Harrisburg office.
The bi-level barn had a complete irrigation system made up of timers, 500-pound tanks of liquid fertilizers, grow lamps and carbon dioxide machines, Ford said.
"Sometimes the electric company gets more upset at them than we do," Ford said jokingly about the large increase of electrical voltage used for home drug gardens. Philadelphia cops said they sometimes subpoena Peco Energy Co. records to get information on people with outrageous electric bills.
"How do you call something that grows out of the ground a drug?" the dealer asked last night. "God doesn't make drugs."
phillynews.com
By SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM
weichss@phillynews.com
Aug. 24, 2004
https://www.inquirer.com/mld/philly/news/breaking_news/9478934.htm?1c
Trace, 39, makes his living selling $300 growing lamps, $15-a-bottle organic fertilizer and $200 water circulation systems to professional gardeners and farmers in Deptford, N.J.
It's the same stuff commonly used by marijuana dealers who grow their stash at home.
"Hydroponics does not need or deserve this bad reputation," said Trace, owner of Tasty Harvest Hydroponics off of Route 41. "We have to distance ourselves from these idiots."
Although Trace said he would never sell his merchandise to anyone he believed was remotely connected to the illegal plant, authorities keep a close eye on his legal industry because of its connection to home-grown marijuana dealers.
On Friday, Fire Capt. John Taylor, 53, and firefighter Rey Rubio, 42, died fighting a Port Richmond rowhouse fire after being entangled in a web of lamp wires used to grow marijuana. Officials believe the flames started in Daniel Brough's basement closet where he was growing at least a dozen 3-foot marijuana plants beneath hot high-powered lamps.
Brough, 35, is now charged with third-degree murder, marijuana possession and involuntary manslaughter for having the makeshift drug garden in his home on Belgrade Street near Orthodox which inadvertently led to the death of the two firemen from Engine 28 Company.
"It is dangerous," Trace said about using hydroponic equipment in a cramped closet. Hydroponics is the science of growing plants without soil.
News of Brough's murder charge quickly spread around pro-marijuana circles. Dan Vinkovetsky, Cultivation editor of High Times Magazine in New York noted the tragedy of Friday's blaze but said if marijuana was "legal and out in the open" the firemen's death could have been avoided.
"The fire they were fighting was caused by poorly installed faulty wires and not marijuana," Vinkovetsky said.
A Philadelphia weed dealer working the Center City scene said more of his colleagues are growing marijuana themselves, cutting out the middlemen (low-level suppliers).
"Some people do a thorough job," said the dealer about the different indoor setups he has seen. "But some people try to get greedy and add more lighting."
Cops are noticing the growing attraction to home-grown marijuana. Since the beginning of the year, Philadelphia police said they seized $7.3 million worth of the drug. Their biggest bust of home-grown marijuana was in May when narcotic officers confiscated hundreds of plants in homes in University City and West Kensington.
"It is relatively inexpensive if you did it right," said narcotics Inspector Joe Sullivan about the makeshift indoor gardens which require about $1,000 for two grow lamps and plant nutrients.
Growing marijuana indoors and controlling the environment creates a more potent batch of the drug which leads to a higher street value, Sullivan said.
And the whole state is catching on to growing marijuana hydroponically.
In March, agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, busted an eight-room barn in Adams County near Gettysburg that housed over 700 plants priced at $2,000 a pound, said Richard Ford, DEA agent in charge of the Harrisburg office.
The bi-level barn had a complete irrigation system made up of timers, 500-pound tanks of liquid fertilizers, grow lamps and carbon dioxide machines, Ford said.
"Sometimes the electric company gets more upset at them than we do," Ford said jokingly about the large increase of electrical voltage used for home drug gardens. Philadelphia cops said they sometimes subpoena Peco Energy Co. records to get information on people with outrageous electric bills.
"How do you call something that grows out of the ground a drug?" the dealer asked last night. "God doesn't make drugs."
phillynews.com
By SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM
weichss@phillynews.com
Aug. 24, 2004
https://www.inquirer.com/mld/philly/news/breaking_news/9478934.htm?1c
