Two pot-hothouse tenders use their good intentions— flower growing—as defense.
Two middle-aged women were arrested last July (2006) when police in Peterborough, England, found them watering about 500 marijuana plants growing under high-powered lights in a well ventilated “city house.” Ai Y Huang and A Mui Doung said they knew nothing about drug dealing; “they thought they were growing flowers.”
Indeed they were, for it’s the flowers of cannabis sativa that, while not much to look at, contain the most THC, the psychoactive ingredient that distinguishes marijuana from homely hemp.
Cleome, or spider plant, one of several plants with Cannabis-ish leaves.
Photo: Gardener’s World
To the non-botanist eye, there are, in fact, quite a number of marijuana look-alikes and several do have gorgeous blooms. Lupine, for example, has similarly compound leaves. So does cleome, or spider plant. And swamp hibiscus—bushy, with toothed leaflets—is similar enough to produce a contact high.
This site from Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture contains loads of information about marijuana, including a section on “confused taxa.” (Update: this link died- presumably when the state’s Department of Agriculture lost its oversight of Cannabis to the Pennsylvania Department of Health 2016).
Cannabis looks a whole lot like several common houseplants and a number of wildflowers. In a purple haze? …consult this guide to discernment.
Perhaps Peterborough’s indoor garden, with its careful climate and light controls, should have tipped the women off that “the Boss,” who recruited them, wasn’t an urban lupine farmer. Then, perhaps not. “Do you need a job?” can be an overriding question.The case is ongoing.
(Originally published: HFP January 7, 2007)
Update: A whole lot has changed in the past 19 years! ~ primarily legalization of marijuana, for both medical and recreational use. The Motley Fool has a great rundown, showing where all U.S. states stand and much more about tax consequences.
Budding cannabis flower
Photo: Badgramm3r
Meanwhile, there’s plenty of unabashed stoner information online now. We were particularly tickled by this enthralled description of cannabis flowers.
“Mature buds look as if they’ve been dipped in translucent crystals due to the resinous glandular trichomes that form on them.”
Ahem: ‘scuse you while you kiss the sky.
We’re out of it, as in over three decades from our last puff, and have never tried the new formulations – oils, gummies, and presumably soon, popcorn available at Buc-ee’s. But we understand the potency of weed today and consumers’ exacting standards for “product” are worlds away from our most psychedelic years, the 1970s. Dig this from a current day cannabis critic: “You’ll never find seeds in any of the high-quality recreational marijuana in the Mat-Su Borough (of Alaska) or beyond. Seeds require quite a bit of energy from the plant to grow; energy that could be used to create more trichomes, thus more cannabinoids and a more potent flower. Seeds are also a pain in the butt to pull out of cured buds and extremely harsh if smoked accdentally.”
Oh gee, you 21st Century heads really have it tough. No seeds? No way.
A family affair, Green Jar dispensary, with two locations in Alaska’s Matamuska Valley
Photo: Green Jar
Such permissiveness and connoisseurship have been incremental, though. In 2014, a chill still ran through Killingly, Connecticut, when someone observed that a shadowy decoration on the flyer of local events looked like a marijuana leaf (nope, a Japanese maple). And the following year, in a throwback to “Reefer Madness”, a middle school in Bedford County, Virginia, actually suspended an 11-year old for a year after finding, presumably, a leaf of cannabis in his backpack – again, a Japanese maple look-alike. “The field test came back not inconclusive, but negative,” said the family’s attorney, but school officials notified the magistrate anyway.
As recently as 2024, a North Carolina news station warned gardeners of “Copycat cannabis plants that could bring cops to your door”. Flashback!: It’s 1972 and there’s the Orange County sheriff with a handful of lovelies uprooted from a vacant lot next door to our door….
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