Agents of the Third Judicial District Drug Task Force (DTF) — with help from the Greeneville-Greene County Special Operations Team, Greene County sheriff’s deputies and the Greeneville Police Department’s K-9 unit — raided what they described as a sophisticated indoor marijuana-growing operation in southern Greene County at about 6 p.m. Friday.

Sheriff Steve Burns, who was at the scene along with Chief Deputy John Jones, said at about 7 p.m. Friday that charges of manufacturing marijuana were expected to be placed against a Tweed Springs Road couple in connection with the discovery of “50-75 marijuana plants” inside a house adjacent to theirs.

Burns noted that when DTF agents and members of the Greeneville-Greene County Special Operations Team served a search warrant at what was otherwise a vacant house on Tweed Springs Road at about 6 p.m. Friday, they found dozens of heavily-budded marijuana plants growing in pots inside two bedrooms of the small frame house.

The raid, according to the DTF agent, came as the result of information received by the TF from the TBI, the Greene County Sheriff’s Department and from citizen complaints.

Acting on that information, the DTF conducted surveillance of the Tweed Springs Road residence that led agents to suspect that marijuana was being grown or sold inside the house, the DTF agent said Friday evening.

The small frame house was situated at the end of a gravel driveway leading to an adjacent house and was surrounded by the pens of what appeared to be game roosters. Several head of cattle also grazed nearby.

Sophisticated Operation

The plants, according to a DTF agent who headed the investigation that led to the Friday afternoon raid, were situated on specially constructed tables made from corrugated fiberglass roofing material.

Fed by an electronic timer-controlled watering system that recycled nutrient-rich water from a large plastic tank, the plants were lit by special lights designed to simulate sunlight.

Electronic timers also controlled the “grow lights” hung from the ceiling above the plants, the DTF agent said, noting that the grow light in one of the rooms was mounted on a ceiling track.

A timer, the agent said, switched on an electric motor periodically, moving the light back and forth over the plants below in an effort to ensure that each received adequate light.

In one room was what appeared to be a “battery backup” system to keep the lights and timers going in the event of a commercial power failure.

Taped to a wall inside one of the bedrooms was what appeared to be a hand-written growing schedule that tracked the amount of nutrients being fed as well as other aspects of a plant-care program.

The list was titled “The Cycle” and appeared to outline a multi-week growing schedule.

The DTF agent said the lights and sophisticated controls were designed to “trick the plants into new days of growth.”

Sheriff Burns, meanwhile, said the growing process could be maintained 365 days a year using the techniques being employed inside the small frame house.

“These are good plants, and this operation is ongoing,” Burns said. “These plants are capable of producing many, many pounds of marijuana.”

Both the sheriff and DTF agents on the scene described the quality of the marijuana found on Friday afternoon as “very high.”

Burns said the plants appeared to have been specially cultivated and tended to produce large numbers of buds, which contain high levels of THC, the active ingredient of marijuana.

Squeezing one of the buds between his forefinger and thumb, the sheriff pointed out that they were sticky to the touch. That, the sheriff said, indicated that the plants had a high THC content. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana.

A DTF agent, meanwhile, described the confiscated marijuana as “one toke dope,” noting that inhaling one puff of a cigarette or pipe bowl containing the plant material likely would be enough to make the smoker high.

“This is some of the strongest marijuana you can grow,” the sheriff added.

Each marijuana plant, the agent said, could be sold for “a couple hundred dollars, easy, if they wanted to sell the marijuana that way. If sold by the pound, the agent said, the marijuana found Friday likely could have sold for anywhere from $2,800 to $3,500 per pound.

The agent estimated that all the marijuana found inside the house on Friday likely would weigh between three and five pounds.

Sheriff Burns noted that the growers apparently were “cloning” new plants from old ones by clipping stems from plants and rooting them in a growing solution.

By doing that, the sheriff said, the growers could theoretically continue growing potent marijuana for as long as they desired to do so.

Other Drugs Found

When DTF agents served a search warrant at a nearby house where the alleged marijuana growers were believed to live, a DTF agent said, a quantity of drugs believed to be Valium and the potent pain-killer OxyContin were found there.

The residents of the house did not have medical prescriptions for those drugs, the agent said.

Charges of possessing controlled drugs likely will be placed as a result of that discovery, the agent said.

DTF agents, Special Response Team members and sheriff’s deputies and detectives were still at the two residences late Friday night conducting additional searches and dismantling the marijuana-growing operation.

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