"grow house"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 3/11/07, Grant Barrett <gbarrett at worldnewyork.org> wrote:
>
> On Mar 11, 2007, at 16:53, Charles Doyle wrote:
>
> > I recently heard on a local news broadcast from Atlanta about a
> > narcotics raid in a residential neighborhood of a nearby town.
> > Residents of the subdivision were astonished to discover that a
> > GROW HOUSE was located on their street. In the ediface so
> > designated, quantities of high-grade marijuana were being cultivated.
> >
> > UrbanDictionary.com does not record "grow house"--though Google
> > exemplifies it amply.
>
> A similar term is "grow operation" or "grow-op."
>
> http://www.dtww.org/index.php/citations/grow_op_1/

Also "grow room", which is used in reference to indoor (hydroponic)
gardening more generally, not just marijuana cultivation.

Here's the earliest cite for "grow house" I've found so far (on Google
Book Search):

"There are countless numbers of grow houses (premises wherein large
quantities of marijuana are grown and cultivated) in Portland." --1986
Major City Survey on Drug Arrests and Seizures: Report of the Select
Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control. Published 1987.


--Ben Zimmer

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