CULTIVATING, GARDENING, TRAVELING IN YOUR CAR, USING AT HOME
The tips below have been gathered from the mistakes made by over a hundred clients we’ve represented on marijuana and other drug charges over almost two decades. If you follow many of these hard learned and valuable tips, the chances of ever getting bused and needing my services will be almost zero! Many of the "Tips" below will overlap; for instance, storing fresh, smelly weed in a sealed jar or multiple baggies inside Tupperware is as valid for the grower as it is for the vehicle driver. The best "Tip" is to review them all, and apply the ones that are relevant to you.

Remember, it’s a doggone crime that weed is against the law. But it is against the law—for now! The "tips" below may seem to be a real hassle and pretty involved—but getting busted for pot is even MORE of a hassle than taking these proven precautions! The more you adopt an openly "Rastafarian" Lifestyle, the more likely you are to draw the attention of the cops. For marijuana smokers, America is like an occupied country. Blend in, you’re okay. Stand out, and you’ll eventually get busted and end up having to hire an attorney.

24 TIPS FOR THE HOME GANJA GROWER

1. 
2. Do not buy timers, wiring, soil, fertilizer, ducting, water barrels, and other items for your grow at an indoor grow op store; go to hardware stores, nurseries, and other retail establishments that the cops aren’t surveilling on a regular basis.
3. When you shop for cultivation necessities, shop out of town. You buy 40 bags of high grade potting soil at the same nursery, you look suspicious. Buy 5 at one place, five at another. Try not to use the same sources twice if you can avoid it. Spread out your shopping over different stores, in different cities, or even different counties.
4. If you have to go to a grow shop for a ballast or bulb, consider borrowing the car of a relative who is squeaky clean and goes to church every Sunday. A license plate check on them will not likely lead back to YOU.
5. Consider concealing your appearance with sunglasses, caps, etc. when you go to a grow op store. Cops do have cameras.
6. If possible, go to grow op supply stores in the evening when it’s dark. It’s harder to take good surveillance photos from that undercover cop van in the dark.

   

7. Shop alone.
8. Don’t ever use credit cards or a check, pleeezzee!
9. Don’t ever tell the grow op clerk your name, anything about where you live, or how healthy your "tomatoes" are using Black Gold soil. Loose lips sink ships.
10. If you are unloading supplies at your location, do it at night, when neighbors aren’t likely to notice.
11. NEVER leave bags of soil, pots, pieces of conduit, etc., sitting outside your grow room or in the back of your vehicle.
12. Resist the temptation to take photos of your beautiful buds, even if you think you’ll win High Times prizes. Forget the Kodak moment. Think: what if one of your kids or a dinner guest just happens to find one in your home?
13. Never show anyone—even your closest friend or a relative—your grow room. Today’s friend or devoted cousin can be tomorrow’s snitch for purposes of obtaining a Search Warrant.
14. Be sure the walkway to the front door of your house goes nowhere NEAR any entrance to your grow area.
15. Make sure visitor parking is as far from your grow as possible. If need be, park clunkers around any outside grow building to prevent police cars from parking close to it should they drop in for a "knock and talk".

    

16. Keep all processed, fresh pot in containers that are airtight. Odor is enough to give cops Probable Cause to get a warrant. Zip lock bags are just not airtight. The best technique I’ve heard of is using hermetically sealed coffee canisters LOCKED into a freezer. Multiple tupperware containers—one inside another—are also effective.
17. Make it clear and obvious which entrance is your front door. Police and the public are allowed to walk on whatever path that guests would normally approach to ring the bell or knock. In many homes, this means that visitors walk up the concrete pad in front of your garage to reach the porch. If that’s your home, DO NOT use the garage for horticulture.
18. If you have a different front door layout than in #15 above, don’t give anyone an excuse to "go round back" or "look for you out in the garage". Pour a concrete walkway to your front porch, and consider low railings on each side to prevent visitors from "wandering off" that pathway.
19. Fence off areas you don’t want strangers wandering into. Fencing is cheap, and it screams "Private, Stay Out" should Smokey arrive for a visit.
20. Use "No Trespassing" and "Beware of Guard Dog" signs liberally, both around the edges of your property and affixed to your home and outbuildings. Don’t have a dog? So what…a cop or stranger is going to be pretty careful snooping in your yard if he thinks there’s a hungry pair of pit bulls wandering around.
21. If you have a driveway in a rural area, get a metal gate. Keep it closed, with "No Trespassing" signs on each side. Put barbed wire fencing around the perimeter of your property. Unless they have a warrant or are responding to a 911 emergency, police may not enter your property if you have a closed security gate and No Trespassing signs posted.
22. Order a snow removal tool from Northern Tools. Nothing spells "grow room" more than a garage that the snow is melting off of faster than your home!
23. Check each year to see when the Assessor is coming to assess your home. They don’t need a warrant to inspect your buildings. You want to be sure everything is turned "off" on the day they come to inspect.
24. NEVER leave the door to your treasure room unlocked. Never means Never.
25. Everyone should know this but—noise, steamy windows, and smell often show up to support Probable Cause for search warrants. Take care of this shit, or end up deep in it.

    relatively well camoflaged outdoor grow
    

26. 7 Tips for Outdoor Gardens
    1. No matter how good the sun is, don’t cultivate near your property line. If the plants can be seen from the street, a sidewalk, or even a neighbor’s yard, they’re in "open view, it’s not a search and you’re busted.
    2. Remember to camouflage; cops may use telephoto lenses from long distances to see you’re 7 footers if they aren’t surrounded by a screen of trees or some other type of cover.
    3. Build tall, tight, solid fences along any property line where your garden can be seen. If the cops need a ladder to see over the fence, it’s not "open view" and the search would likely be ruled illegal.
    4. Remember odor. Nothing smells "bust" more than freshly maturing buds in the warm sunshine. Put plenty of distance between your crop and the nearest place where a stranger might "stop to smell the roses", even if you have a good fence.
    5. As with indoor grows, don’t leave soil, fertilizer, or other tell tale objects laying around that suggest you have a garden.

       A blind man could spot this grow!

    6. Never let neighbors, workmen, or others wander around without supervision.
    7. Try to water and tend your garden at night, when neighbors are less likely to be within view or earshot.

33 Tips for Driving In Your Vehicle

1. Always be sure you driver’s license, vehicle tabs, and insurance documents are in order before you get into a car.
2. Always insure that all headlights, brake lights, and turn signals are working. More marijuana bust arise from traffic stops than from anything else.
3. Pay attention to your speedometer; this should be obvious, shouldn’t it?
4. If you only need a gram or two, leave the rest at home.
5. No matter how much pot you have in the vehicle, the best place for it is locked in the trunk in an airtight container, not under the seat or in the glovebox.
6. Never smoke in the car. The odor clings for days. If you get stopped for a broken tail light, you’re going to be busted for the odor as soon as you roll down the window to hand out your license.
7. Another reason not to smoke in the car—ever drop a roach that you just couldn’t find? Guess when that roach is likely to turn up—during a "plain view" search of the drivers compartment by that laughing State Trooper!
8. Try not to drive at night when you’re holding. More traffic stops occur at night than during the day.
9. If you’re popping down to the 7/11 for a slurpee and twinkies because you’ve got the munchies, don’t wear your Bob Marley T-Shirt or pull up with Sublime songs blaring on your CD. Cops focus on that kinda stuff, and they frequently hang around convenience stores at night looking for drunks and wastoids.
10. If you’re thinking about a tattoo of the "Zig Zag Man" for your bicep, think again. If you already have one, wear long sleeved shirts whenever you are holding, no matter where your going.

    Bust Me First

11. And no, that doesn’t mean wearing your long sleeved "Greatful Dead" sweatshirt to cover the tattoo. Your bad.
12. If you are going to carry some bud with you in a vehicle, choose your newer compact car, not you favorite ole Chevy pick up with the "Rastaman" or "Hempfest" bumper sticker on the back.
13. If you’re on your way to the Gorge at George, be discreet if you stop for a group smoke. Pull out of view of passing cars or pedestrians before you light up. The great outdoors ain’t that great if the sheriff’s wife happens to drive bye and sees you and your posse pulled over on the side of the road engaging in a toke fest.
14. Avoid transporting in any vehicle that does not have a locked trunk that is not readily accessible from the passenger compartment.
15. If you regularly drive a pick up, get a locking tool chest for the back.
16. Remember that even if you don’t smoke in the vehicle, the smell of good Afghanie sticks to your clothes and hair. If you can’t change clothes after smoking, dose yourself with Ozium before you get into a car.
17. Fresh bud in the compartment of a car, even triple baggied, still smells. Use a hermetically sealed container with a gasket lid. If you’re stopped and a cop smells fresh buds, that’s enough probable cause to seize your car and wait for the dope sniffin’ dog.
18. If you do smoke before a car trip, consider leaving your dope at home. Even if a cop smells dope on your during a traffic stop, he has to FIND some on you or in the car to arrest you.
19. Never, ever, ever, ever give consent to a cop to search you, your car, or anything inside your car.
20. Never, ever, ever, ever answer questions a cop asks about what’s in your car, whether you’ve smoked dope, whether you’re voting for Hillary or Barack, or any other question besides your name. Be courteous and provide him your license, registration, and insurance card. Then be mute.
21. Never carry pipes or other drug paraphernalia on your person or stashed in the passenger compartment. Roll joints. You can’t eat a pipe when the cherry top goes off in your rear view mirror.
22. Even if you abide by #12, KEEP THE JOINTS IN THE TRUNK or IN A LOCKED CONTAINER.
23. If you are a passenger in a car that is stopped, you are not required to provide the police with identification. Be patient but do not answer any questions. You have no legal obligation to identify yourself if you’re a passenger, no matter what the cops threat or claim they can do.
24. If you are the driver and are cited for a traffic infraction, do not argue, just sign the ticket.
25. Ask if you are free to leave.
26. If you’re free to leave, leave!
27. If the officer detains you, ask if you are under arrest.
28. If he says yes, ask what for.
29. Immediately ask to speak to a lawyer.
30. Do not say another word; do not answer questions, do not volunteer information, don’t give the cop consent or permission to do anything, do not comment on how shiny the cop’s badge is. Shut the F*** up COMPLETELY.
31. If you are under arrest, do not resist. Be cool. The cop has the Power, you don’t.
32. Since you’re in a car, you won’t have a phone book. Always carry the card of a good criminal defense attorney.
33. If you are told you are not under arrest, tell the officer you wish to leave.

13 Tips to Avoid Busts In Your Home

1. Do not smoke in the living room or dining room if it’s near the front door to your home with either the drapes open or the windows open. A cop or stranger who sees you smoking or stripping buds through your window as they approach (house) or pass (apartment) your front door is watching and smelling what you do in plain view. El busto.

   Complete Pothead's Kit: NO PIPES IN THE CAR!

2. Try to avoid collecting paraphernalia. It can be easy to lose track of, and you don’t want your mother in law finding a pipe under the baby’s crib. She just may turn you in for your own good. If you have to collect something, don’t collect bongs, collect stamps. SMOKE JOINTS!
3. If you live in an apartment, consider smoking in the bathroom where there’s a ventilator fan to prevent odors from lingering . If that’s not possible, use an open window that does NOT open onto a landing or stairwell where others can easily smell the smoke.
4. Whether it’s a house or apartment, consider running the heating/air ventilator fan to clear the smell from whatever area you were smoking it.
5. ALWAYS use an odor cover after smoking, like Ozium or a heavy pine scented air freshener.
6. Remember: Odor is your enemy! Whether is from fresh smelly buds or recently smoked ones, a cop has Probable Cause to get a warrant if they can claim they smelled marijuana wafting out of your residence.
7. If you have a problem with noisy neighbors, your car has been vandalized, or your residence has been burglarized, THINK before you call 911; do you really want cops responding to a non-violent call about an unrelated crime to find back bedroom grow op? Can you deal with the neighbors in the morning when they sober up, and was the stuff stolen by the burglar worth getting busted for? Are you sure you’ve got every bit of pot paraphernalia hidden away in something that locks before the Mounties arrive? We would never suggest not calling 911 immediately to report a serious crime or medical emergency. Just remember that whenever you call 911, you are implicitly inviting Officer Friendly to come to your home, and he’ll want to come inside. Tidy up.
8. If you occasionally buy an ounce or less and sell or give some to friends:
   • DO NOT keep records of transactions or customer names or phone numbers in writing, on your cellphone, or on your computer (duh!)
   • DO NOT keep dope scales in the house (use accurate postal scales instead, they have a legitimate use)
   • DO NOT bag small amounts for others in advance. Once you start putting pot in separate containers, it’s evidence of intent to deliver.
   • DO NOT keep anything more than 40 grams in your home (that’s a misdemeanor; more that 40 grams is a felony)
   • DO NOT give/sell any amount of dope to your friends, relatives, or Santa Claus while in your home; always arrange to make the transfer in a public location away from your home. Hassle? Can you spell S-E-A-R-C-H W-A-R-R-A-N-T?
   • DO NOT ever provide weed to a stranger, no matter who says he’s "cool". A lot of "cool" guys turn out to be informants, narcs, and snitches.
9. If the police execute a search warrant on your home, insist on reading it.
10. Never give police consent to search anything, no matter what they threaten to do if you don’t co-operate (Ex: threats to strip search, turn your kids over to CPS, forfeit your car, etc.). These are virtually always B.S. threats. nothing except "I want to call my lawyer". Then say nothing else.
11. Best Advice on avoiding a search by the SWAT Team - if you can afford to buy less than 40 grams for your stash, be content with that. Forget the "Costco" approach of buying in bulk to save a few bucks. Don’t go into low level gram dealing just to break even and pay for your stash. It just isn’t worth the little money you may save, and ANY delivery or transfer of dope can get you arrested for a felony, even if it’s a gift!