DRUG BUSTS

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A CORPORATE MODEL OF POT DELIVERY

AP - An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York
are having their pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug
dens or hanging out on street corners. Among the legions of home
delivery customers is Chris, a 37-year-old salesman in Manhattan. He
dials a pager number and gets a return call from a cheery dispatcher who
takes his order for potent strains of marijuana. Within a couple of
hours, a well-groomed delivery man - sometimes a moonlighting actor or
chef - arrives at the doorstep of his Manhattan apartment carrying weed
neatly packaged in small plastic containers. . . The phenomenon isn't
new. It has long been the case around the country that those with enough
money and the right connections could get cocaine or other drugs
discreetly delivered to their homes and places of business. But experts
say home delivery has been growing in popularity, thanks to a shrewder,
corporate style of dealing designed to put customers at ease and avoid
the messy turf wars associated with other drugs. . .

The corporate model - and its profit potential - were demonstrated late
last year when the Drug Enforcement Administration announced that it had
taken down a highly sophisticated organization dubbed the Cartoon
Network. DEA agents arrested 12 people after using wiretaps and
surveillance and making undercover buys.

Authorities estimated that since 1999, the ring made a fortune by
delivering more than a ton of marijuana, some of it grown hydroponically
- without soil - in the basement of a Cape Cod-style home on 10 acres in
Vermont, where an informant reported the smell of the crop was
overpowering.

The dealers, working out of a roving call center, processed 600 orders a
day - from doctors, lawyers, Wall Street traders - even on Christmas,
investigators said. Authorities refused to give names, but in one
conversation overheard last October, a courier boasted about the ring's
upscale clientele, according to court papers.

http://www.katu.com/news/national/4575976.html

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