But unfortunately it's not. Telling the wrong person is the number 1 most common reason growers get caught.

So if you want to prevent the number one reason growers get caught, you should never, ever tell a soul that you grow marijuana. No excuses.

Here's my "never get caught, ever, for growing weed" policy: You can never trust someone else as closely as yourself. If someone isn't actually growing marijuana with you, as a partner in crime, there is no reason to tell them about your illegal activities.

If someone asks you where you got your weed, tell them you'd rather not talk about it and leave it at that. Better yet, don't tell them you smoke at all.

Don't ever give hints that you know how to grow weed. If you encounter others who are talking about it, bite your lip and act dumb!

I also recommend paying a few bucks for the "stealth shipping" option the next time you're ordering seeds. Most reputable seed banks offer this. 

Once you see how they send it stealth, you'll know why it'd be next to impossible for someone to intercept the package. 

I order seeds a few times a year (since 2004) and have never had a problem. I once actually received my seeds and the package had been opened, but Nirvana Seeds had done such a good job with the stealth packaging that the officials didn't see the seeds and just sealed the package back up and sent it to me. 

Rule 3: Consider all sounds, smells, and light that come from your grow room.

Block all windows with light-proof fabric or blackout curtains. The incredibly bright grow lights that are needed to grow marijuana are a dead give-away that someone is growing weed inside.

As far as sounds, lights can give off a hum, but usually water pumps are the equipment that make the most sound when growing. If you have a roommate, or if you share a wall with a neighbor, you need to buy a better water pump or better light set that is dead quiet.

Another big thing to remember is that you will get used to the smell of flowering plants, so don't think that the smell isn't there just because you can't smell it.

Some strains are high-odor, while other strains are low odor or just do not smell like marijuana. 

Low-odor strains include Northern Lights, Papaya (smells tropical), Jock Horror, Ice (smells like jet fuel), and Blue Mystic. 

Smells are usually more intense when things get hot and humid.

If you're venting air outside, control odors in the vented air with a carbon scrubber. This is something that air passes through which will remove the odors before they go outside. 

If that's not enough, you'll need to start going crazy with the odor-control products. You'll often find some of the best ones at hydroponic stores. :)

Rule 4: Be smart about comings and goings to your home or grow area (especially with lots of growing supplies).

People are surprisingly nosy about what you're doing. Remember that.

If some bored neighbor is watching you, it's going to seem weird if you're going in and out of your house with pots, nutrients, big bags of soilless grow mix, etc, especially if you don't actually grow anything besides marijuana.

That's why one of the best covers for growing weed is growing a few other plants, whether it's flowers, vegetables, fruits, etc. 

I keep a few flower pots with random flowers on my front porch, some rose bushes, a lime tree, and I keep a vegetable garden in the back. All this gardening is is an ideal cover for growing weed.

If that's not an option, then make sure you are not observed when you come and go with supplies. Night works best.

Rule 5: No house guests

Ok, I know that's a bit harsh, but how about this: if you don't trust someone with your life, and it's possible for them to find your weed if they're nosy, don't let them come over to your house.

At the very least, lock the door to your grow room and don't let them anywhere near.

The reason I bring this up is because there is such a high number of marijuana growing arrests that are directly the result of a random guest coming across a grow rooms by accident. 

You may think that people are trustworthy, but often you don't know people as well as you think you do.

In my 8 years of growing, I've known a half dozen growers who were ratted out on by those close to them, including parents, siblings, cousins, even "best friends."

So if you're serious about privacy (and not rotting in jail or worse), I strongly recommend no more guests inside your home until after you've secured your grow area against visitors being able to access it.

If someone doesn't commit the crime with you, they cannot be trusted, simple as that. 

Rule 6: Consider that helicopters with heat cameras can fly over your house

Just like the guinea pig story at the beginning of this article, law enforcement officials often search for unusual heat activity to discover marijuana grow operations. 

The intense heat given off by HPS lights is a dead giveaway that's something unusual is going on.

If you have a large indoor garden, then you already know how hard it can be to control the heat. Controlling heat is good for your plants, but you also need to do it to avoid getting caught.

If you are growing with HPS, Metal Halide, or other HID grow lights, and things are getting hot in your grow room, you will greatly increase your security by investing in a good exhaust system that pulls hot air out of your grow room and vents it outside (but make sure you don't forget Step 3, get a carbon scrubber to ensure you're not venting out the smell of your flowering plants).

Another option is to change to a type of grow light that gives off less heat.

LED panels and CFL bulbs are low-heat grow lights which can still produce over a pound of bud out of your closet. 

LEDs and CFLs barely give off any heat, and use only a fraction of the electricity of HID lights. 

They work especially well when one is growing a few plants in a closet, as opposed to a huge grow operation. 

LEDs do tend to cost a bit more, though after your initial investment, they'll reduce your costs in the long run because of their extremely low electricity usage.

CFLs are very cheap - just a few bucks a piece - but you have to get quite a few of them and use some advanced growth control techniques if you want to produce monster yields with CFLS.

What I use...

I have used HPS lights, and when used in the flowering stage, I believe they give you the absolute highest yields of any grow light. If I lived in a cold climate where heat wasn't such a problem, I probably would stick with using HPS lights.

Yet I always tend to come back to using a mix of LED and CFL lights because of heat concerns where I live, and the high cost of electricity.

A combination of two eLoofa LED panels and a couple of CFLs allows me to grow 2-4 flowering plants at a time, produce 8-15 ounces/plant, keep heat low, and only spend about $25/month on electricity. 

Rule 7: Use your common sense

It's easy to get comfortable after a while if you've been growing weed for a long time.