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Killer grow-op solution raises eyebrows
By Hempology | July 8, 2003
From the Times Colonist, July 8, 2003
By Bill Cleverly and The Canadian Press
A B.C. entrepreneur says he has found a seedy way to kill marijuana grow operations
– protecting landlords from hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential damange
repairs.
But a spokesman for Victoria landlords said he’d have to be convinced the product
both works and is safe before he’d recommend it to his members. A plant expert
thinks the idea is unworkable.
“It sounds, frankly, too good to be true,” Al Kemp, CEO of the Rental Owners
and Managers of B.C., said Monday. “If this would work I think someone would have
come up with it before.”
Kelowna resident Michael Glendining said treating houses with his hemp
pollen-dust, No Grow, causes viable pot plants to go to seed and be
rendered useless.
The spores are spread through the house by the central heating system, a
service No Grow provides for $500 a year.
Kemp said he spoke to No Grow pincipals about a year ago and wasn’t convinced
about the product’s safety.
Grow-op: Botanist has some concerns
“If this is something that is so toxic to marijuana plants, is it something we
really want to put into a system within a building where people are living?”
The product, which will be sold in Vancouver in about 10 days, is not avaialble
in stores but only through No Grow installers.
The cost is $39.95 a month, which Glendinning said is cheap insurance compared
to the cost of repairing structural and humidity damage from grow ops that use
extreme light and heat for plants to thrive. The company also puts up stickers
on treated houses, which Glendinning said would serve as a deterrent to
tenants interested in starting grow ops.
A University of B.C. botanist, Douglas Justice, has some reservations
regarding the service.
“It might work very nicely in a lab in a single room or something like that,”
he said. “If you’re sending it through a furnace you’re going to have all sorts
of ductwork that the pollen is going to deposit itself in. My guess is that it
won’t have the desired effect.”
The pollen would have to be so thick it would cover the furnature and walls,
possibly creating breathing problems for some people, said Justice, assistant
director of the University of B.C.’s botanical garden and centre for plant
research.
“It would look like hell,” he said. “Not only a real mess but I think
a waste of money.”
Glendinning defended the product as non-toxic, all natural and safe. But
he said it has not been tested or certified by and health agency.
“They told us what the guidelines would be bt we haven’t given them this product
and said test it. That would cost lots of money that we aren’t willing to spend.
We know the product,” he said.
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