A Butler County incident in which local police detained a couple before getting to the bottom of an apparent hibiscus-growing operation is the latest case of law enforcement cracking down on people growing plants that resemble marijuana.
Police in Georgia raided a man's property in 2014 after agents in a state drug helicopter mistook okra plants in his garden for marijuana.
"We've not been able to identify it as of yet. But it did have quite a number of characteristics that were similar to a cannabis plant," WSB-TV in Atlanta quoted Georgia State Patrol Capt. Kermit Stokes as saying.
Authorities apologized to homeowner Dwayne Perry.
"Here I am, at home and retired and you know I do the right thing," Perry said. "Then they come to my house strapped with weapons for no reason. It ain't right."
Police descended upon a Brooklyn rooftop in 2013 after a building manager discovered what she suspected was a clandestine, rooftop marijuana garden.
Investigators eventually identified the scofflaw plants as tomato seedlings, the New York Daily Post reported.
In 2012, police wielding assault rifles, a battering ram and a warrant busted into a home outside Kansas City, Kan., belonging to a former CIA employee. The hydroponic garden they were certain was cultivating marijuana contained only tea leaves and a scraggly tomato plant, the Washington Post reported.
Members of a Narcotics Task Force in 2010 swarmed a New Mexico Montessori school from a helicopter and ground vehicles. The marijuana thought to be growing inside a greenhouse once again turned out to be tomato plants.
Corpus Christi police in 2010 eradicated a city park of hundreds of what were believed to be pot plants. It turned out to be a weed of another kind: horsemint , KRIS-TV reported.
According to The Survival Gardener, here are five plants that look like marijuana but aren't:
Coral Plant
Cranberry Hibiscus
Rose Mallow/Scarlet Hibiscus
Cassava
Kenaf/Hibiscus cannabinus
