Pot growers see opportunity in empty Las Vegas homes - latimes.com

Pot growers see opportunity in empty Las Vegas homes - latimes.com
Las Vegas has a pot home problem. And like many of the region's maladies, it's tied to the housing slump.

Last year, authorities took down 153 indoor grow sites in Nevada and seized more than 13,000 plants, compared with 18 sites and 1,000 plants in 2005, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said. (By comparison, California busted 791 indoor sites last year.)

"You can't have crime without opportunity," said William Sousa, a criminologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "And all those empty homes present an opportunity for criminal activity."
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You have to admire that American entrepreneurial spirit. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When the subprime mortgage crash gives you thousands of empty foreclosed homes, turn them into marijuana greenhouses.