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Massive indoor marijuana grow busted

August 13, 2010

Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s department busted what they suspect is the largest indoor marijuana grow ever uncovered by law enforcement shortly before 8 a.m. on Thursday. [KCOY]

Working on a tip, deputies discovered the grow on the Dos Pablos Ranch which sits west of Goleta between Highway 101 and the Pacific Ocean.

Deputies estimate between 20,000 to 40,000 plants, valued at between $40 million to $80 million, were being grown in nine commercial greenhouses. The former tenant, Dos Pueblos Orchard Company, had grown flowers in the greenhouses.

Also found during the bust were several hundred pounds of processed marijuana along with heaters, lights and fans that permitted the growers to harvest year around.

Kelvin Kelley, 61, and John Dodson, 57, tried to run when deputies arrived with a search warrant. The men were arrested and booked into Santa Barbara County Jail for felony possession of marijuana for sale and cultivation of marijuana. Kelley was also booked for resisting arrest.

Both men are being held on $30,000 bail.


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If cannabis were legal, it would be grown on farms instead of on public lands. This is one of the many reasons you should vote YES on Proposition 19 in November.


There are so many reasons to support California Proposition 19 that we sometime forget some of them. A YES vote on Prop 19 will have the following benefits:


Reduce violence and crime

Reduce racially biased arrests

Generate $1.2B to $1.4B in taxes

Create 60,000 to 110,000 jobs

Reduce police corruption

Increase respect for police and the law

Free police to focus on property and violent crimes

Reduce prison costs and prison overcrowding

Expand California economy by $16 to $23 billion

Reduce drug cartels’ revenue

Reduce environmental damage from illegal grows

Allow adults to choose a safer alternative to alcohol


To read the studies documenting these outcomes, and to learn more about Prop 19, please visit yes19.org


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I have to agree with you but “Reduce racially biased arrests”? That’s a bunch of crap. The cop’s arrest anybody caught with crop like this. Stop with the race card BS.


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40 to 80 million ‘valued”, growing in nine commercial greenhouses, with two honky fogies busted based upon a ‘tip’.


Consider from whence the financing for this venture did originate and where the profits would flow. If you were a crime-group, say from Mexico, who would you pay to be the ‘front’ men for such ops? 20 something Enrique, or Kelvin?


If this was a ‘legal’ pot farm, how much revenue would have been generated for state/local agencies?


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“Oh, too bad”; How about, what a massive waste of effort, time and taxpayer’s money to keep arresting people who grow marijuana? “If there’s nothing wrong with it, if its a legitimate product with medicinal qualities and benefits to mankind, WHY DID THE PERPS RUN?” Well duh; they ran because it is STILL illegal to grow, regardless of its medicinal qualities, regardless of it being a legitimate product (which it is not due to it being illegal; once it is legal, it will THEN be legitimate) and as far as there being nothing wrong with it, IT IS STILL ILLEGAL. You are correct that it is fought over and murdered for, BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL! Once it is legalized, it will not be fought over or murdered for (any more than alcohol is now). Is that clear enough for you?


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Was a bad idea to make it illegal in the first place.


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zaphod you got it right again


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What – no ‘oh too bad’ comments from the ‘Cal Coast Cannabis Club’? No negativity foisted at the Sheriff’s Dept? You ‘pro legalization’ folks are notably absent from this one.


Let me be the first to say GOOD JOB SANTA BARBARA SHERIFF!! WAY TO GO!! And THANK YOU!!


I am SO SICK of the pro-legalization crowd on these comment pages! Its a GOOD THING – a POSITIVE THING that this stuff doesn’t hit the streets! this bust benefits the community and keeps this stuff from becoming de facto street currency to be fought over and murdered for.


If there’s nothing wrong with it, if its a legitimate product with medicinal qualities and benefits to mankind, WHY DID THE PERPS RUN? Where’s the outrage pro-potheads?


Lock these two up and throw away the key!!


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Marijuana is a strange and powerful drug that causes irrational and psychotic reactions in the law abiding people who have never tried it.


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