1) I doubt power companies care about what you're using power for (in terms of growing pot). I find it very unlikely that they would be monitoring their customers for power trends just to report them to the police and shut them down.
2) What would stop growers from running alternating 12/12 hour light cycles in different rooms to make it look like 24h steady-draw?
Utilities are still companies, they care about preventing stolen power and maintaining profits, everything else is just white noise.
I guess one could do that adds more to the cost as you'll need more lights. They are not cheap, more so the balastest.