42 Easy Ways for Getting Busted Growing Marijuana

By Alan Ruggles | Published: August 9, 2016

We were sitting around dabbing rosin the other evening when the discussion turned to people getting busted for growing marijuana.

Getting busted is one of the worst things that can happen to you, and it’s almost always avoidable.

Here’s a list of actual causes we’ve heard for people getting busted.

1. Thinking nobody will know what that grow room smell is, so you don’t use any filtration, scrubber, or odor cover-up. The same goes for not masking sound from air conditioning and other grow op equipment.
2. Failing to cover windows properly so bright grow light photons leak out of your windows all night. Having industrial-size AC units or exhaust fans on a domestic, suburban grow house. Getting busted for these mistakes does happen!
3. Looking like a hippie or drug dealer. Looking like a drug-addicted loser.
4. Having loud, obnoxious, dangerous dogs.
5. Having loud, obnoxious, dangerous friends who visit your grow house.
6. Having loud, obnoxious parties at your grow house.
7. Letting your grow house fall down with peeling paint, broken windows, etc. Or letting your yard get overgrown so code enforcement gets called on you.
8. Failing to pay your utility bills or other bills so bill collectors start hounding you at home.
9. Utility workers enter your back yard to cut tree limbs near power lines and see your plants or signs of an indoor grow op.
10. Having plumbers, electricians, roofers, painters, fence companies, and other contractors over to your house when you’re growing. Not paying business associates on time or in full. Ripping people off.
11. Getting into an argument or fight with a neighbor. Talking outdoors so neighbors hear you talking about cannabis.
12. Violating traffic laws. Getting high (especially combusting) in your vehicle. Having paraphernalia or contraband visible in vehicle.
13. Having broken taillights or other unsafe, illegal equipment on your vehicle.
14. DUI.
15. Committing or being a victim of domestic abuse.
16. Forgetting to lock your doors.
17. Forgetting to post no soliciting signs.
18. Not having a good fence with locked gates around your entire property.
19. Not noticing the helicopter that keeps flying low over your grow house.
20. Not noticing the unmarked car with the guy who looks like a cop in it that’s frequently parked near your house.

21. Having marijuana seeds or clones or packages marked “hydroponics supplies” delivered to your grow house.
22. Visiting hydroponics stores that are under surveillance.
23. Using way more electricity than other people with similar-sized houses in your neighborhood.
24. Unloading grow equipment so outsiders can see it.
25. Mentioning marijuana to anyone at all.
26. Getting drunk and blabbing about growing marijuana
27. Getting involved with a woman who narks you out (read this article). Angry women are one of the prime reasons growers are getting busted.
28. Selling weed to a nark.
29. Selling schwag, especially overpriced.
30. Ordering grow equipment online and having it sent to your grow house.
31. Messing with a neighbor’s daughter, sister, or wife.
32. Wearing clothing displaying marijuana leaves or other 420 or stoner emblems. Ditto for bumper stickers.
33. Failure to pay property taxes or income taxes.
34. Being an asshole so people want to do bad things to you.
35. Living near a police officer, especially an officer who has a police dog.
36. Throwing away cannabis stalks, stems, or grow gear containers and packaging in your street-side garbage can.
37. Waving a gun around.
38. Smelling like marijuana.
39. Trying to sell marijuana on Craigslist.
40. Having a child custody dispute with a vicious ex who knows you grow weed.
41. Leaving marijuana around so kids can get hold of it and overdose on it or show people they have it.
42. Having meter readers come onto your property to see your electricity meter spinning wildly in the middle of the day.