What are the rules to grow marijuana legally in Massachusetts?

A significant marijuana growing operation was found in Belchertown this week where police officers found hundreds of marijuana plants that violated the legal limit for growing marijuana at home. 

The Belchertown Fire Department received a call of a possible house fire and when they arrived at the home on West Street they noticed a significant growing operation allegedly run by two men from out of state. 

In Massachusetts, marijuana can be legally smoked and possessed but when it comes to growing the plant, there’s a legal limit. A limit that was well surpassed when Belchertown police and fire discovered a growing operation of more than 800 marijuana plants inside a Belchertown home on Monday night. 

It is allowed to have six plants per person with a max of 12 in a household, so if there are two people living in a house they can have 12 plants but if you go above that it’s illegal.

Police arrested two men who were involved in the operation, both men are from Brooklyn, New York. In addition to the plants, police seized $2,500 in cash and a significant amount of growing equipment that covered the whole house. 

“It wasn’t a furnished home someone would live in. Where you would typically have a piece of furniture, the entire square footage was taken up by marijuana plants,” said an officer during a phone interview.  

The two men who were arrested were arraigned in Eastern Hampshire Court Tuesday morning and will have a pre-trial conference on February 12.