The Irish Bust Thread

New garda chief targets cannabis farms

Tuesday, 19 April 2011 09:34
Written by Tom Kelly

The newly-appointed Castlebar Garda Superintendent has advised members of the public with information regarding cannabis 'grow houses' in the county town to urgently contact the police.
Superintendent Peter O'Boyle, who was previously stationed in Ballina, told yesterday's (Monday) meeting of the local joint policing committee that anybody noticing an industrial unit or rented house with blacked out windows should be suspicious.
He said members of the regional drugs unit were based in Castlebar who were very anxious to uncover locations where the drug is being illegally cultivated and processed.
Special air filtration, irrigation systems and drying equipment were required to process the cannabis before it was sold on the streets at huge profits.

Superintendent O'Boyle was responding to concerns expressed by Independent Councillor Michael Kilcoyne about the increased popularity of the drug among young people.
Fine Gael Councillor Eugene McCormack said one of the reasons there was a demand for cannabis was due to the perception that it is harmless.
And he strongly criticised newly-elected Roscommon TD, Luke 'Ming' Flanagan, for contributing to the perception.
He stated: "I am firmly of the view that cannabis is a gateway drug and it causes mental health problems. I have a difficulty when a member of the Oireachtas like Deputy Flanagan endorses its use."

A representative from the Western Regional Drugs Task Force is to attend future meetings of the committee to help maintain a focus on the sale and misuse of illegal substances.
Superintendent O'Boyle gave a commitment to crackdown on outdoor drinking parties at Lough Lannagh and the Town Park following a wave of fresh complaints.
The Mayor of Castlebar, Councillor Ger Deere, said there were problems on the castle side of the lake on St. Patrick's Day that residents of the area did not want repeated.
Inspector Martin Byrne confirmed an operation, headed by plain clothes officers, is being put in place at both locations for the summer months.

An appeal has been issued to taxi drivers never to deliver alcohol to such locations.
Superintendent O'Boyle is to meet with the proprietors of the Welcome Inn Hotel and TF Royal Hotel regarding the smooth operation of teenage discos in their premises.
Councillor Deere revealed a plan agreed with the hoteliers was not adopted at a recent event, most notably in regard to the parking of buses in the vicinity of Davitt's Terrace and other residential areas.

The new garda chief has also warned owners of 'soaped-up' cars that their days of causing noise disturbances on the streets of the town are coming to an end.
"A special operation is being put in place to end this practice one and for all," he explained.
The meeting heard that the owners of the Harlequin Hotel at Lannagh Road had complained about guests being awoken from their beds due to the racket caused by the noise vehicles.

Click to expand...

60 cannabis grow houses found in ten months


Updated: 17:13, Wednesday, 20 April 2011

Gardaí have discovered 60 cannabis grow houses in Ireland in the past ten months, with over €6m worth of the drug seized.
Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan said organised crime gangs have moved into this area of drug production and distribution following the closure of head shops and because it was a low maintenance, high return activity.
At the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors conference last night, the Commissioner also said that 40 people were currently before the courts.
Operation Nitrogen was set up by the Garda National Drugs Unit ten months ago to investigate the increase in cannabis being produced and sold in Ireland.
The Commissioner insisted gardaí had made significant inroads into this activity.
On an unrelated matter, the Commissioner said it was desirable that people would vacate official accommodation on their retirement.
In Ballyferriter, a retired Sergeant is continuing to occupy the station house and has even refurbished the premises.

Click to expand...

Increase in cannabis production a ‘concern’: Garda Commissioner

Yesterday, 10:10 AM

THE GARDA COMMISSIONER has expressed concern over the increase of cannabis grow houses, with 60 facilities being uncovered in the past ten months.
More than €6 million worth of cannabis has been seized by gardaí over the same time period. Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan said that organised crime gangs had switched to the area of cannabis production following the shutting down of head shops because the business offered a high return for little maintenance, RTÉ reports. However, Callinan said there were other reasons behind the increased presence of grow houses in the state.
He added that 40 people were due before the courts.
Gardaí set up Operation Nitrogen ten months ago to tackle the increase in cannabis production in Ireland. Callinan said that investigators were making “significant in-roads” in tackling the criminal gangs involved.

Click to expand...

A 48-year-old man who admitted growing cannabis for his own use has had the case against him adjourned for the preparation of a probation report.

Judge Flann Brennan told Michael Robb, S t reamhou se , Dowdallshill, he must no longer use the drug.

The court heard that when Gardai searched the house north of Dundalk on May 31st 2010 they found a plantation unit with heating lamps and fans to circulate the air. There were seven mature cannabis plants, one of which was described as a 'mother plant'. The plants were valued at € 3,200.

Mr. James MacGuill solicitor said his client was a 48-year-old man in full time employment. He didn't have any family and lives on is own.

He had admitted the cultivation charge from the earliest date but denied a charge of supply.

Remanding the defendant on continuing bail, for a probation report, Judge Brennan said he would also like a medical report and told Robb that he must no longer be using cannabis when the case comes before the court again on October 26th.

-

Click to expand...

CONOR LALLY Crime Correspondent

Fri, Mar 18, 2011

A CANNABIS-GROWING facility found by gardaí in Co Meath was being readied to produce a crop valued at €1.4 million every eight weeks and is both the largest and most sophisticated operation of its kind ever found in the State.

Senior Garda sources said the premises were in the process of being doubled in size and when fully constructed would have been capable of producing a cannabis crop every eight weeks with a street value of €1.4 million.

“This was an industrial-sized operation in the true sense,” said one Garda source.

The discovery was made at Bective near Trim in Co Meath on Wednesday afternoon.

Some 1,720 plants valued at €680,000 were found growing on the premises.

A timber-framed extension was being added to the warehouse that would have doubled the floor size and enabled the simultaneous cultivation of just under 3,500 cannabis plants.

An examination of the warehouse and farm has revealed the Irish gang behind the operation was using techniques never seen in the Republic before.

Rows of high-wattage lights needed to generate sufficient light and heat to grow the cannabis crop had been attached to generators designed to kick in and ensure the crop continued to grow in the event of a power cut.

The warehouse walls and doors had been covered in a specialist spray-on insulation to maintain high levels of heat in the warehouse.

An irrigation system had also been put in place to feed the plants with large quantities of water, all mixed with chemicals to aid the plants’ growth and increase the potency of the drug they produced.

The five men arrested at the scene on Wednesday are aged 40, 43, 37, 32 and 60 years. They have all been detained under section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act.

Three of the men gave addresses in Co Meath and the other two are from Cabra, Dublin.

They were taken to Kells and Navan Garda stations where they were still being questioned last night.

It is understood some of the suspects, none of whom are well-known criminals, will appear before the courts as early as today.

The arrest of Irish people at a cannabis-growing facility is highly unusual.

The number of finds of cannabis crops has increased significantly here in the last two years but almost all of those have been controlled by Asian gangs and most of the suspects arrested have been Vietnamese.

The Asian gangs began using the Republic as a cannabis-growing base more often just over two years ago after they were detected growing crops in Britain and Northern Ireland.

Wednesday’s raid and arrests operation followed an intelligence-led Garda investigation involving periods of surveillance on a number of suspects and on the premises targeted.

The operation was led by members of the Garda National Drugs Unit with members of the Meath detective and drugs units.

It was the latest raid under the national drug unit’s Operation Nitrogen, which was established to investigate gangs behind the increasing number of cannabis cultivation operations found in the Republic.

© 2011 The Irish Times

Click to expand...

ANNE LUCEY

Wed, May 25, 2011

GARDAÍ HAVE seized almost 400 semi-mature cannabis plants on a remote site in the mountainy countryside outside Killarney, Co Kerry.

The seizure of 385 plants by Killarney gardaí near Derrycunnihy and the Eagles Nest area between Kenmare and Killarney on Monday afternoon, is one of a growing number of detections of cannabis leaf or grass plants cultivated in wilderness areas in the county, according to Kerry’s senior drugs squad garda, Sgt Declan Liddane.

In their mature state, cannabis plants are valued at €400 each, according to gardaí.

Suspects were employing the most sophisticated means, including Google Earth satellite maps to locate remote locations for cannabis cultivation in Kerry, according to the garda.

The seizure on Monday was on private rather than State-owned land, said Sgt Liddane. He said cannabis growers were increasingly using modern technology to locate suitable but remote areas for cannabis cultivation.

In a recent investigation by gardaí into a find of cannabis plants in a wood near Tralee, it emerged that Google Earth maps had been used to locate a clearing suitable for cultivation of the plants, he said. A decade ago most seizures were of cannabis resin, but now cannabis leaf was prominent in seizures, the garda said.

© 2011 The Irish Times

Click to expand...

Wed, Jun 08, 2011

A man appeared in Killarney District Court yesterday charged with growing hundreds of cannabis plants in a remote valley between Killarney and Kenmare in Co Kerry.

Donal McCarthy(66), Incheens, Derrycunnihy, was also charged with possession of drugs, including LSD, with a value of €13,000 or more for sale or supply on July 29th, 2010, growing 370 cannabis plants, possessing 189g of cannabis herb and 17g of cannabis resin, and with possessing 64 LSD tablets, all for sale or supply.

His solicitor, Pádraig O’Connell, said Mr McCarthy had “no gainful income” and was applying for free legal aid.

Insp Martin McCarthy said he was seeking an adjournment for preparation of the book of evidence. Judge Olann Kelleher adjourned the matter to September 6th.

© 2011 The Irish Times

Click to expand...

ninja bud said:

I get freaked when I read this thread

Click to expand...

Sat, Oct 30, 2010

Criminal gangs have been setting up cannabis-growing cottage industries in Irish suburbs, renting expensive houses and installing sophisticated irrigation and heat lamps to net crops worth up to €280,000 in eight weeks. CONOR LALLY , Crime Correspondent, reports on the lucrative drug cultivation under our noses

IT’S MID-AFTERNOON when the illegal Vietnamese immigrant hears the noise he has been dreading. Someone is banging on the hall door, trying to rouse the occupants of the house. The caller’s efforts continue for a few minutes. It’s the landlord. With no sign of life in the rented house he decides to let himself in. Hearing the key in the lock, the Vietnamese man decides to bolt. He flees through a back window and down the streets of this middle-class south Dublin suburb.

As the landlord pushes open the hall door he sees that things are not quite as they should be. He sees wires running from the ESB meter through the hallway. As he follows the cables upstairs he notices a makeshift wooden panel nailed to the landing wall. It is covered in sockets from which dozens of wires run into the bedrooms.

A maze of small tubes also runs into the bedrooms from the bathroom. As the landlord pushes the doors open he can hardly believe his eyes. There before him, in the house he rents out in the middle of Rathfarnham, are rows and rows of cannabis plants, 500 in all, each about a metre high.

He has just discovered one of Ireland’s cannabis grow houses, in his own house. The man who has just fled was tending to the lucrative crop on behalf of one of the Vietnamese-led international crime gangs now operating here. The landlord contacts the Garda Síochána and reports his find.

Later that evening news filters through of the discovery of another, unrelated, grow house to the west of the city, in Lucan.

A total of 700 plants, at varying stages of maturity, are found in the two houses, valued at more than €300,000. It has been another busy day for Operation Nitrogen. Run by the Garda National Drugs Unit, it aims to catch the newest entrepreneurs on the illicit drugs scene, the grow-house gangs. Since July the detectives working on Nitrogen have discovered cannabis plants valued at more than €4 million in 15 grow houses in at least nine counties. Over the past two years finds of plants and drugs have been made in at least 19 counties, with a total value of close to €10 million. But those in the know concede that the finds most likely represent only a tiny proportion of this Vietnamese-dominated trade.

Several gangs have seen a number of their grow houses raided recently by the Garda. Detectives believe some of the grow-house gangs are dealing in cannabis herb to the same extent and value as the hauls of harder drugs sold by the major gangland Irish players in Dublin and Limerick.”

When Garda sources speak of the grow-house culture they conjure up a picture of shady and sophisticated international criminal networks growing lucrative crops of cannabis so high in quality that they have effectively redefined the Irish cannabis market in production methods, pricing and availability.

The Vietnamese-run gangs produce herbal cannabis for smoking that is three times more potent than cannabis resin. The process of harvesting the mature plants from the grow houses is simple: they are cut down and dried, pressed into slabs and packed into bags. They are then sold in wholesale quantities to Irish gangs for the domestic market or exported to gangs overseas.

Unlike cannabis resin, the cannabis herb cultivated in the grow houses does not have to be processed. It is sold on the streets in single-gram quantities for between €12 and €20. It is mostly mixed with tobacco and smoked.

“The potency of cannabis is all in the tetrahydrocannabinol content,” says a Garda source with expertise in the cannabis trade. “With cannabis resin the THC content is around 5 per cent, but with the herb from the grow houses it’s 10 to 15 per cent – much stronger. So the demand from users is high.”

Another Garda source is more blunt: “Around four or five years ago you couldn’t give this stuff away in Ireland. We had a street value on it of around €2,500 per kilo a few years ago, but that’s now as high as €14,000 per kilo.”

A typical crop found in a standard-sized house would number 400 to 500 plants. These would be capable of generating up to 20kg of cannabis, with a street value of €280,000.

In sophisticated grow houses, where growing is at maximum intensity, a single crop can be produced from sapling to harvest in eight weeks. This means a grow house producing one crop after another uninterrupted for a year could produce drugs with a street value of €1.8 million.

But most grow houses discovered by gardaí have contained a crop near maturity and a second young crop already under way. This process means a single house can produce a crop more often than once every eight weeks, driving the output of one operation close to €2.5 million a year. One grow house discovered recently had been operating for two years before it was detected.

To establish a grow house the gangs must start by finding a suitable property. They favour detached houses in middle-class suburbs, where they believe neighbours will be less nosy and Garda patrols less frequent. They also use isolated houses in rural areas, where their operations are less likely to be detected.

The recession means there is an abundance of vacant properties. Gardaí say that, because properties are harder to rent, the vetting of tenants by both landlords and letting agencies has become lax. “In some of the houses we’ve raided we’ve found very poor-quality false IDs under fake names and with references written by people with broken English,” said one Garda source.

Once a house is rented the gangs quickly go about setting up their cultivation systems. Heat lamps, with high-wattage bulbs that mimic the sun’s light and intensity, are installed. These are often suspended on metal chains that gang members fix to bedroom ceilings. Plastic sheeting is usually placed on the bedroom floors to catch any splashes from the watering systems.

Reflective sheeting, usually tin foil, is used to cover the walls. This reflects all of the light from the high-intensity lamps, generating the very warm and bright environment needed to grow the plants in an eight-week cycle. Rows and rows of potted cannabis plants are then set out in straight lines across the bedroom floors. The plants come in both female and male varieties; the gangs favour the female, because it is more productive than the slower and smaller male.

Once the pots are in place the gangs go to work in the upstairs bathroom. They fill the bath with water and pour into it a mix of industrial vitamins and minerals that will greatly aid the plants’ growth and increase the THC content. “The chemicals would be the kind of stuff legitimate people, such as firms growing crops of flowers, would use,” says one source.

Tiny tubes are then run from the bath into the bedrooms. The tubes are run over the rows of pots and punctured with small holes at the points where they pass over each plant. A timer-operated pump is then placed in the bath and connected to the network of tubes. It pumps precise quantities of vitamin-enriched water on to the plants at the right times for growing the crop as quickly as possible.

The lights shining on the crops often operate on timers. “They usually go for 16 hours a day, with eight hours of darkness because you have to let the plants rest,” says one Garda source.

If both lights and water are operated by timer the gang cultivating the crop needs to call to a grow house only a couple of times each week to check the process. “This reduces the chances of being caught and means they don’t have to pay somebody to stay there all the time,” says a source.

The blinds and curtains are kept closed in the bedrooms where plants are grown. Growers often tack blackout canvas over the drawn curtains, so the bright lights shining on the cannabis cannot be seen from outside the property.

The gangs use huge quantities of electricity but don’t pay for it. They tap into the main live power cable in a house just before it runs into the meter. Once into the live cable they run a secondary wire from it. This is run into a makeshift fuse board, which is usually mounted on an upstairs wall. To this board they fix numerous sockets, from which the lamps and irrigation pumps are run.

Gardaí say that the alternative wiring systems installed into grow houses are of an excellent standard. “The gangs bring in experts to set everything up: these are not fellas chancing their arms.”

The national grid is not sophisticated enough to pinpoint a property using industrial levels of power – as grow houses do – in dwellings where the power meter has been bypassed. Garda sources also say that the gangs’ wiring systems are sophisticated enough to mean that original power points continue to work and show a reading on the meter.

“If they put on the kettle or a light, it all still works and it still shows on the meter,” says a source. “So they can’t be detected through using far too much electricity and they won’t arouse the ESB’s suspicion by using no power at all.”

The smell generated in the intense cannabis-growing environment is very strong, so the criminals tape around the edges of all windows to keep the odour in. They then install ventilation units that suck in the house air and have filters to cleanse it. Some of the houses have a unit in every room where plants are growing. The clean air is pumped out of the property through tubes that are run up the chimney. This means the air pumped from the house will not smell foul enough to arouse suspicion, even in densely populated areas.

Sources point out that the equipment used by the gangs – lamps, chemicals, tin foil and plastic sheeting – is freely and legally available because it is all used in legal indoor cultivation, such as growing flowers for sale.

The consequences of houses being turned into growing facilities can be devastating for unsuspecting landlords. Often the watering systems leak on to floorboards and down into the plaster of the ceilings in rooms below, ruining both. Ceilings in bedrooms are also ruined by the fixing of the heavy chains from which the lights are hung.

A wiring system that has been bypassed is often classified as unsafe by the ESB, meaning that a property has to be rewired throughout. Wall surfaces, too, are often destroyed as the gangs cut into plasterboard to install their own fuse boards and hammer in cables. “A house is uninhabitable for a while after one of these things is found,” says a Garda source.

The same source says that the demise of head shops is likely to drive demand for herbal cannabis. “You would have had people who may have never bought drugs before going into the head shops because they were legal. But now that avenue for cheap legal highs is closed we think cannabis is the product they will most likely turn to. The potency of the stuff from grow houses is very high, and there’s an apathy towards cannabis across most societies anyway.”

Another source says that the recession, coupled with the financial return from grow-house operations, means it is only a matter of time before Irish gangs seek to join the Vietnamese criminals who currently dominate Irish drug cultivation.

“A lot of the Irish organised-crime gangs have bought houses that are now in negative equity, or they’ve hidden their money by buying new cars they can’t sell from the garages they’re aligned to. Other gangs have loaned money to legitimate business people who simply can’t pay it back.

“The gangs’ lack of cash means they don’t have the money to buy huge hauls of cocaine like they did before. So we expect these gangs to start going into the grow-house game to start raising money. That’ll most likely be the next development.”

Pot of gold Why the grow-house gangs like the Republic

The Vietnamese gangs operating cannabis grow houses in Ireland first started growing crops in residential dwellings in Canada in the late 1990s. In 2000 or so the grow houses began springing up across continental Europe, spreading westwards and finally reaching Britain and Northern Ireland about six years ago.

The first grow houses in the Republic appeared in Co Monaghan in the summer of 2008. Two rural properties were found to contain plants valued at €400,000, growing in a sophisticated facility run from Belfast by an Asian gang. The period since July has seen record finds of the grow houses, involving plants valued at more than €4 million.

One major attraction for those behind the operations is that they can both grow and sell the drugs in the Republic, without the need to move hauls in risky journeys across international borders.

Since last year facilities have been found in counties Dublin, Donegal, Meath, Cork, Tipperary, Carlow, Wicklow, Roscommon, Galway, Kerry, Leitrim, Cavan and Clare.

Gardaí have now put heat-seeking equipment into the cameras on the Garda helicopter so that they can detect the intense heat coming from the grow houses.

Some of the facilities in Dublin have been located in sprawling period properties set on their own land in suburbs such as Foxrock, Blackrock, Rathfarnham and Stillorgan. “They are literally where you would least expect to find them,” says a Garda source.

In most of the houses detected, the people tending the crops, known as gardeners, have been found on the properties during Garda raids. One of these has claimed that she was trafficked into the Republic and forced to work as a gardener.

Although gardaí have not encountered any serious violence linked to the grow-house gangs here, the experience of the UK, where gangs have been operating for much longer, suggests that they are major gangland entities.

A report by the UK’s Association of Chief Police Officers found that the gangs are involved in gunrunning, extortion, human trafficking (including child trafficking), prostitution, money laundering, tobacco smuggling and kidnapping.

Many gangs in the UK set booby traps in their grow houses, aimed at electrocuting anyone who tries to break in to steal their crop.

© 2010 The Irish Times

Click to expand...

July 16, 2011 - 11:38am
SUSPENDED SENTANCE FOR CANNABIS GROWER
A man who was caught "red handed" growing cannabis plants at his home in Loughrea has been given a two year suspended sentence.

47-year-old Dean Lawrence of Kylebrack in Loughrea was sentenced before Galway Circuit Criminal Court.

The court heard that Gardai found 51 cannabis plants when they raided Dean Lawrence's home in Loughrea on July 24th last year.

Over 100 grammes of cannabis resin was also seized during the search.

The court was told that Lawrence denied having the drugs for sale or supply.
Judge Groarke told Lawrence that he believed he hadn't grown the drugs for commercial purposes.

He then handed down a two year sentence - the entirety of which was suspended for two years.

Click to expand...

By Tom Brady Security Editor
Friday September 02 2011
IT'S the criminal enterprise that has green shoots growing in almost every county.

Cannabis growhouses are sprouting up as criminals exploit the demand for high quality herbal cannabis which is pushing street prices to a record high of €25 a gram.

The growhouses can be set up quickly and easily by fitting rented property with lighting and irrigation systems to cultivate hundreds of cannabis plants at a time.

Up to recently, the lucrative racket was dominated by Asian criminals, mainly from China and Vietnam.

But local gangs are now muscling in on the trade and pushing the Asians into minority partnerships.

After start-up costs of between €5,000 and €9,000, the growers can see a profit of around €170,000 from an eight-week crop. Many are now developing a multi-crop cultivation programme. This guarantees a fresh rotating crop every four weeks, maximising the profit and helping the gangs to cope with the increasing demand.

The new drugs phenomenon led the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) to establish Operation Nitrogen, which last year resulted in the seizure of more than 700 growhouses with more than a 10th of them linked into organised crime.

So far this year the unit has uncovered 350 houses and seized more than 13,500 herbal cannabis plants which have a street value of around €5.4m.

"There is no organised crime gang in the country at the moment that does not have some involvement in cannabis cultivation although some are still continuing to import from overseas," a senior garda officer said last night.

"The homegrown stuff is of very high quality but the amount being produced in the houses is not sufficient for large-scale trafficking. You could get 15 kilos per crop of 350 to 400 plants and you need several houses on the go to make it worthwhile.

"Despite the recession, the price is still shooting upwards. It was €12 a gram a year ago and has now doubled. Demand for herbal has taken over completely from cannabis resin and the quality produced from the houses can be particularly good, especially if Asians are involved."

Payments

After rows with Irish criminals over payments, many of the initial Asian growers have left the country. But, according to the gardai, some of the major gangs have signed up the Asians to work with them and guarantee a better crop.

"The Irish won't live in the house with the crop because of the sweet, pungent smell of the cannabis and use timers to regulate the watering of the plants.

"The Chinese gang bosses use Vietnamese house minders, who stay indoors throughout and even have their food brought to them. They can earn around €1,000 a week and this is huge money for them to send back to their families," one officer said.

Gardai have established that local criminals are now banding together for the cultivation business with up to eight in a gang.

They look for large rented properties in isolated rural areas, where they can convert them into growhouses without attracting attention. They prefer properties with long avenues such as the house raided by the GNDU on Tuesday in Ballyboughal, north Co Dublin.

Two rooms and a garage had been kitted out with a sophisticated irrigation system and gardai seized 350 plants in different stages of maturing. Gardai believe a north city crime gang was behind that operation.

The gardai also delivered another financial blow against a Chinese gang when they uncovered a growhouse in Portarlington, Co Laois, on Wednesday night and seized 400 plants.

Some 90pc of finds are as a result of intelligence and tip-offs from landlords who become suspicious of their tenants' activities.

- Tom Brady Security Editor

Irish Independent

Click to expand...

COOKIE MONSTER said:

that cant be true?

Click to expand...

Friday September 02 2011
Loopholes in the law are allowing growhouse operators to purchase cultivation equipment in shops, writes Tom Brady.

The equipment, which was initially designed to help flowers grow in the Netherlands, is being used by the crime gangs to grow herbal cannabis.

Gardai said they cannot take action to stop the sales unless they can prove that the seller is aware that the buyer intends to use the equipment for illegal purposes.

*They are also concerned that the law brought in to tackle headshops deals only with cannabis cultivated in water and does not account for plants growing in soil.

"These loopholes need to be closed off urgently," an officer warned last night.

Irish Independent

Click to expand...

Hundred Gram Oz said:

Fighting a fight that they can't ever win.

Click to expand...

Biochemist ‘inspired’ by smoking cannabis
By Liam Heylin
Friday, November 11, 2011
A WELSH biochemist accused of supplying cannabis said she enjoyed smoking a pipe of her home-grown drug and that it inspired her to work hard on her land in West Cork.
Sionad Jones pleaded guilty to two charges, namely cultivating the cannabis and possessing it for her own use, but denied the charge of having the drug for the purpose of selling it or supplying to others on September 10 last year, when 18 plants were seized by gardaí.

It only took a jury 10 minutes to return a unanimous not guilty verdict on that charge at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

The unusual case was greeted with frequent outbursts of laughter from the public gallery and indeed from the jury box.

Detective Sergeant Fergal Foley, who gave evidence for the prosecution estimating an €8,000 value on the seized cannabis, described Jones as free-spirited.

The 52-year-old freely admitted smoking cannabis from the age of 19. A qualified biochemist, she bought the land and house at Maughanaclea, Kealkil, Bantry, Co Cork, 24 years ago with her young son after moving to the county in order to grow vegetables, trees and herbs.

She told the jury she also grew cannabis plants outdoors. "I had to hide them so the guards wouldn’t find them but they did. Unfortunately."

Peter O’Flynn, defending, said the prosecution believed she would be the type of person who would supply her home-grown cannabis to friends.

Jones said: "I don’t mix much with other people. I spend a lot of time outside working.

"I just have a little pipe by myself to inspire myself. My cannabis is uplifting and gives me inspiration and energy to do the work. I am 52 and I’ve been smoking this since I was 19. I don’t consider it did me any harm. I am not addicted. Some days I don’t smoke any."

Siobhán Lankford, prosecuting, made the case that the yield from the 18 plants seized by gardaí was too great to be used by one person and suggested that if it was a year’s supply it would have been enough for 1,600 or 3,200 pipes of cannabis, depending on whether a quarter or a half gramme of cannabis was used.

But Jones had no interest in weights or measures.

"I don’t waste my time weighing it before I put it in my pipe, I just smoke it and get out and do something positive with my life."

Sometimes her year’s supply would run out before the end of the year but Ms Lankford wanted to know if there was some left over from the 2009 crop at the start of 2010. One of the biggest outbursts of laughter greeted Jones’s delayed and cautious reply, "Is this a trick question?"

Later in the cross-examination, Jones began to find it funny herself. When Ms Lankford suggested that the defendant must socialise with neighbours from time to time, "and offer them a smoke of your pipe?" Jones laughed and said: "No, they might leave their germs on the pipe."

Jones smiled respectfully throughout the process and accepted that there was a law against growing and possessing cannabis and that she had broken this law.

While looking quite at home in the witness box it sounded like she was more at home tending her precious crop, "watching them since the spring. Watching and waiting. Hopefully."

A group of second-year students from Rathmore Community School in Co Kerry couldn’t believe their luck that they picked yesterday to be in Cork Circuit Criminal Court. One of them remarked afterwards: "If every case was like that I’d be there every day."

However, the weeks ahead may be no laughing matter for Jones, who has a nine-month suspended prison sentence hanging over her from a district court in West Cork for cannabis cultivation. This may now be activated.

One way or another, the woman with several previous cannabis cultivation convictions will be back before Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin for sentencing for her latest cultivation and drug possession convictions on December 1.

Judge Ó Donnabháin said she would have to reflect on her attitude to the offences now that she had several convictions for smoking or growing cannabis.

"Either you change or face the consequences," the judge warned.


Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/irelan...by-smoking-cannabis-173559.html#ixzz1dbNKAwat

Click to expand...

Man who grew cannabis in bedroom is sentenced


A CAMPILE MAN who cultivated cannabis in the bedroom of his home was handed a 12month, suspended prison sentence having appeared on a plea of guilty before Judge Gerard Griffin at Wexford Circuit Criminal Court.

Before the court was 29- year- old Michael Fleming, of Knockae, Campile, who pleaded guilty to the possession of a controlled drug, a quantity of cannabis herb, for the purpose of selling or otherwise supplying, at Campile on November 9, 2009.

He further pleaded guilty to the unlawful cultivating of cannabis plants on the same occasion. Garda James Farrell told the court that plants were found in the bedroom, small plants that were starting to grow.

The defendant, he said, had the plants under light and in small heated containers. There were approximately 47 plants in total, he said.

Garda Farrell also said that Fleming had 20 to 25 plants growing in an outhouse for the previous two to three months.

The defendant agreed all of the cannabis plants were for sale or supply due to money struggles, and that he had five to six regular customers, making around €40 profit per ounce. He would sell four to five ounces per week.

Defence Counsel, Conor O'doherty, said the defendant had entered an early plea of guilty.

He was no long involved in the cultivation of cannabis plants. Judge Griffin said he would impose a 12month sentence on the first charge, suspended for three years, on defendant entering a bond of €100 and coming under the guidance of the Probation and Welfare services. He also handed down a 12month sentence on the second charge, to run consecutively, and suspended for three years.

Click to expand...