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I began a "Computerized Ebb & Flow Indoor Grow" operation in 1980. The “Computerized Controllers†were made by a friend of mine who worked at Tektronix in Hillsboro, South of Portland Oregon. I was living in Albany at the time, and went to meet "Tom Alexander" author of "Sinsemilla Tips Magazine" in Corvallis Oregon. I was one of only three other Hydroponic growers in Oregon at the time. In 1984, although we didn't realize it at the time, the DEA along with Local Law Enforcement were working quietly to put us out of business. I heard through "The Grapevine" that seven Grow Operations were targeted for a RAID, so I quickly disassembled the grow operation in two houses I rented and filled, in a record 4 hours and got out of the business just in time without being arrested. Here it is 28 years later and I am "Legally Growing Medical Marijuana" for a severe Neurological condition in my entire spine, from my head to my lower back (From Home Construction Work when I was in my 20's & 30's). I am still using the same computerized Ebb & Flow Controllers today. I am legally growing 6 plants in my Garage. High Times, December 1983, pp. 35-37 Excerpts from "Interview: Tom Alexander" Tom Alexander knows the marijuana business inside and out. After being busted in [Corvallis,] Oregon in 1979 for pot growing, Alexander went legit and began mail-ordering his leftover bat guano fertilizer. Business boomed, and within a short while Tom and his wife Nancy were running the largest grower supply store in the state. One year later he started a little homegrown newsletter entitled Sinsemilla Tips, which has since become the unacknowledged trade journal of the cannabis industry. .... Portland NORML notes: Alexander was obliged to quit publishing Sinsemilla Tips in 1990, not long after the DEA walked into Full Moon Farm Products and stole his entire inventory at gunpoint as part of "Operation Green Merchant," the October 1989 nationwide crackdown on horticultural stores. Although Alexander was never charged with any crime, the laws were written so it would have cost him more to contest the DEA's theft than his $55,000 of inventory was worth. Consequently, both his store and Sinsemilla Tips were effectively put out of business. The illegal raid on Alexander's store had a significant impact on efforts to reform marijuana laws in Oregon. To this day the most prevalent feeling among would-be activists is that working to reform the marijuana laws will only incite illegal behavior against them by the police. Understandably, Alexander has dropped out of the marijuana-law-reform movement. During the preparation of this page in May 1996, Portland NORML spoke with Alexander, who now publishes a widely respected non-marijuana-oriented magazine on hydroponic gardening called The Growing Edge. Explaining his silence in recent years, Alexander stated for the record, Tom says: "I spent 10 years on the front line. I tried to play by the rules but the DEA consciously broke the rules and targeted me."