The everyday items that Louisiana residents buy and use have to first be created. Food products are grown and sold in supermarkets and grocery stores. Goods ranging from cars to carpeting to rocking chairs are manufactured and produced in factories and warehouses. Almost everything people can use or buy starts as something else, and illegal drugs are generally no different.
Certain drugs, such as methamphetamines, are manufactured from other items. A person can be charged with drug manufacturing if he is at all involved in the production of an illegal substance. Individuals who buy the products that go into making illegal drugs can even be charged based on how their actions relate to the manufacturing of an illegal substance.
Cultivation, on the other hand, has a more agricultural focus rather than a manufacturing one. For this reason, marijuana is the drug most commonly related to a charge of cultivation of drugs because it is grown as a plant. Marijuana grown for general distribution is illegal, though certain jurisdictions throughout the country allow individuals with medical ailments to cultivate low numbers of marijuana plants for their own medicinal use.
Drug manufacturing and cultivation charges can have serious consequences for those who face such accusations. Fines and incarceration are not uncommon punishments for those convicted of drug offenses and depending upon where a person is accused of producing drugs, the penalties can be more significant. Defenses do exist, however, in drug cases, and charges may be mitigated or defeated if a person is able to overcome the evidence offered against him. Louisiana criminal defense attorneys can offer defendants case-specific information relevant to their particular drug manufacturing and cultivation charges.
Source: FindLaw, “Drug manufacturing and cultivation,” accessed April 6, 2015