Why just reading the Herald won't keep you fully informed

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UPDATES:

Frank Alvarado from Miami New Times reminds me that he did this story two years ago.

And I was perhaps a little too hard on the Herald when I said that you'll never see this story on their front page. I'm sure they'll get around to doing it one of these days...I can see the headline now: "Newly Arrived Cubans Finding Work in Florida's Growth Industries"
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Interesting front page Special Report in today's Orlando Sentinel.

The story, by staff writer Henry Pierson Curtis, documents law enforcement's fight against Florida's indoor-marijuana trade, which cops say is dominated by Cuban refugees.


It's the kind of story you won't see anytime soon in the Ultra-Politically Correct Miami Herald. And certainly not on page one.

And that's understandable.

As Pierson points out, "The topic is sensitive in a state where the status of Cuban refugees was a badge of honor until tainted by a few thousand criminals in the 1980s Mariel boatlift."

(An AP story based on the Sentinel's report is posted on the Herald's web site.)

But the Sentinel's story is as important as it is eye-opening.

Among the Sentinel's findings:

"Groups of young Cubans are turning to the lucrative business of raising ultrapotent pot worth up to $4,500 a pound without fear of deportation or lengthy prison sentences."

"Probation is a common sentence for anyone convicted in state court of running a grow house."

"[Officals] estimate that Cubans who arrived in the U.S. within the past five years represent 85 percent to 90 percent of the suspects arrested in Florida on grow-house-related charges."

"Cuban-American National Council President Guarione M. Diaz in Miami was unaware of the high percentage of young Cuban-born suspects arrested statewide in the pot trade.

"Told of the 348 grow-house-related arrests last year in Miami-Dade County, Diaz said, "Twenty thousand Cubans arrive in South Florida every year, so numerically 300 arrests would be a relatively small number, but I think even one is too many."