Butler County drug arrests
Marijuana
2007-198
2008-147
2009-129
2010-137
2011-75
2012-101
Heroin
2007-5
2008-27
2009-60
2010-37
2011-28
2012-38
Cocaine
2007-24
2008-30
2009-10
2010-12
2011-5
2012-2
Source: Butler County Sheriff’s Office
The illegal cultivation and trafficking of marijuana has become big business in Butler County hidden behind the walls of expensive, upscale suburban homes and businesses, police say.
The days of outdoor marijuana growing operations in rural farm fields are largely a thing of the past, according to police. Cultivators today are using sophisticated and high-tech methods to grow pot inside businesses, apartments and high-priced homes in the tree-lined cul-de-sacs of some of the county’s most affluent suburbs.
And will violence is most often associate violence with drugs like crack cocaine and meth, Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said the lucrative marijuana grow business brings with it the violence of people who are willing to kill to protect their crop.
“Or kill to steal it,” Jones said, noting several homicides and shootings in the county are tied to the marijuana trade.
The Butler County Undercover Regional Narcotics Task Force raided a Fairfield apartment last summer, where they found two bedrooms filled with vining plants, grow lights, irrigation and a ventilation system to keep the tell-tale Cannabis smell at bay. In 2011, the task force busted two brothers who had packed a $245,000 house in Liberty Twp. with $1 million worth of marijuana plants.
Warren County police broke up a $3 million pot ring last year involving a former Mason High School student who was operating a $20,000-a-month marijuana business. That marijuana grow and distribution operation spanned Butler, Hamilton and Warren counties.
One of the ringleaders of the operation owned a Blue Ash furniture store with a marijuana grow operation inside, prosecutors said. Two of the eight people indicted in the pot ring were from Butler County – one from Fairfield Twp. and one from Hamilton.
“There is no question it is a large scale problem, and it’s getting bigger and bigger,” said Lt. Mike Craft, of the Butler County Sheriff’s Office.
The indoor growing operations “I believe are the direct result of the sheriff, for 10 years in a row, attacking the outdoor growing (operations) with helicopter fly-overs,” he said. “It forced their hand. The growers had to either move out of Butler County or be more creative.”
Sgt. Mike Hackney, of the sheriff’s office added: “It is always a cat-and-mouse game. We get better at finding them, and they change their game.”
And the potency of their product.
Marijuana today is not the “Woodstock weed” of the 1960s and 70s, police say. The varieties are numerous and the THC levels (what gives marijuana its high) are stronger with the hydroponically-grown plants, which can fetch up to $5,000 a pound.
Pot grown outdoors, “they call it dirty weed, with stems, leaves and dirt,” Hackney said, noting it sells for $500 to $1,500 a pound.
But marijuana grown indoors with irrigation systems and grow lights is a much higher quality and price.
“You just look at it and tell the difference … it’s fluffier,” Hackney said.
Sheriff Richard Jones said the Internet has made ordering marijuana easy and tips on how to grow a good crop are readily available.
“Then you throw in the economy on top of it, and you get some large operations,” Jones said. “We are talking serious money.”
Maj. Rodney Muterspaw, of the Middletown Division of Police, said so many people deal in pot because of the large customer base, particularly among young people.
“It’s an easy buck,” Muterspaw said. “It’s a very easy buck.”
Shannon Mattingly, her husband and two boys live around the corner from the Liberty Twp. home on Sunrise View Circle police raided in 2011, which not is in foreclosure.
A strong smell of chemicals alarmed residents in the neighborhood located near an elementary school. When drug agents arrived with a warrant, two men were in the attic covered with insulation. The rest of the house was packed full of pot plants in various stages of growth.
Harvested plants hung in the basement to dry. Huge holes cut in the floors and ceiling accommodated a ventilation system so that the marijuana did not mold, which decreases its value. The upstairs windows were covered with dry wall so bright grow lights shining all night would not attract attention. Power sources had been tampered with so a warm, tropical temperature could be maintained.
The house was wasn’t for living in; it was for growing marijuana, police said.
“You would never have guessed in a million years what was going on there,” Mattingly said. “It was a ‘wow’ moment.
“We have a lot of kids in this neighborhood,” the 36-year-old mother said. “It was scary to think what might have happened.”
Nationally, arrests for marijuana exceeded arrests for violent crime by more than 100,000 in 2011, according to a report from the FBI. And in Butler County, authorities seized nearly 1,600 pounds of marijuana in 2012 and have made nearly 800 marijuana arrests since 2007 — more than any other drug, including crack, meth or heroin.
But law enforcement officials say despite those numbers marijuana is not their top priority in the ongoing war on drugs. Highly addictive drugs such as meth and heroin – usage of which police say has exploded - are getting most of their attention.
“There’s stuff out there that will kill you and that’s the stuff we go after the hardest,” Muterspaw said. “Plus, the courts don’t frown upon it like what they used to. If the courts don’t take it that seriously, then it’s hard for the police to think it’s that big of a deal, too. All we do is enforce the laws.”
Muterspaw, who served in Middletown’s drug unit for years, said 20 years ago if you possessed or sold marijuana – even a few joints – it was a felony.
“Now, it is really no different than a traffic ticket,” he said. “We still arrest on it if we see it, but we really target harder drugs.”
Marijuana laws have become liberalized over the past decade – with 18 states legalizing the drug for medicinal use and two that allow it for recreational use. There have been discussions in Ohio about ballot initiatives to legalize medical marijuana.
Muterspaw said America’s changing attitudes about pot – polling suggests a majority of Americans favor legalization – is a contributing factor in the proliferation of these growing operations.
“You don’t hear people talking about the evils of marijuana anymore,” he said. “A lot of people don’t think it should be illegal that’s why so many people are growing it these days. You see people who are 21 (years old) growing it and people who are 51 growing it.”
Fran Iannachione, 24, of Trenton said she would favor legalization for medical purposes as long as it is regulated and prescribed for people who really need relief from painful, degenerative conditions.
As for recreational use, Iannachione said “as long as it is in their house, and they are not driving or anything while they are high, I don’t have a problem with it.”
Zac Howard, 24, also of Trenton, favored legalization, but with limits.
“As long as it is not out in the open, like at bars, it’s OK,” he said.
Craft agreed with Muterspaw that drugs like heroin are more of a focus for police, but that doesn’t mean they are turning their backs on marijuana.
“We can’t turn our heads to it because it still does a hell of a lot of damage in our community,” Craft said.
And while some don’t view marijuana as harmful as meth or heroin, Hackney called pot “a gateway drug.”
“I have talked to a lot of addicts – crack, meth, heroin – and almost always, they will say they started out smoking weed and progressed from there,” Hackney said.
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