UK: Drugs crisis' after crackdown

[Lunar Loops]

Great, real harm reduction, let the criminals flood the market with soapbar instead. This from UKCIA.org :

UK: Drugs crisis' after crackdown


Daily Mail

Sunday 17 Dec 2006

---
A police crackdown on cannabis farms has left dealers struggling to keep
up with demand.

Some dealers are even offering cash to regular customers who agree to
grow drugs in their spare room.

Drug education charity DrugScope said the campaign by the Association of
Chief Police Officers (Acpo) - which lasted less than a fortnight - led
to the street price of dope doubling in some areas.

The group said dealers were finding it difficult to keep up with demand
after hundreds of farms were raided by police across England and Wales.

Its Druglink magazine reported: "The raids have forced some dealers to
offer regular customers cash for the use of a spare room for a three
month growing cycle."

In recent years, home-grown cannabis had come to make up 60% of the
country's supply, outstripping imports of the drug.

Therefore, the Acpo campaign has had a devastating impact on the illegal
trade, the magazine went on.

Fifteen police forces took part in "Operation Keymer" from September 25
to October 5, seizing 28,000 cannabis plants and 54 kilos of prepared
cannabis with a potential value of more than £2.5 million.

Acpo cannabis spokesman Allan Gibson, a commander at the Metropolitan
Police, said: "The objective of Operation Keymer was to reduce the harm
caused by criminal networks in producing high-potency cannabis.

"We have focused on closing down high-profit cannabis factories,
arresting the organised criminals behind them and freezing the criminal
assets that would otherwise have been ploughed back into crime."

[Nature Boy]

This article makes a lot of sense in terms of the current lack of greenery around Ireland, probably mainly imported from the UK. The first month's nearly up, does this mean swimmers must wait another two months before stumbling upon some decent smoke again? SWIM certainly hopes not. It appears people have started selling low-grade cannabis resin (not necessarily soapbar, but bad) in order to keep up with the huge demand. Let's just hope they start selling proper gear when it's available again.

[Evil GIR]

Yeah since last summer there was a large number of raids which led to the closure of allot of the uk cannabis factory's. This then lead on to a drought nation wide where good bud was hard to get.

Now because of this it seems that bud is still available but is now contaminated with some sort of fine powder that when placed in the mouth has a very gritty texture.

The contaminate is still unknown but its been rumoured to be anything from fibre glass to sand. Its also unknown as to what the health risks are involved with this contaminate.

As far as the goverment is concerned I doubt they simply don't care as cannabis is illigal and they would probably use any damage done by this contaminate to either scare people awayby saying you don't know what your getting or place fear into people by saying cannabis can kill.

it sucks really

[Nature Boy]

That's a good point. That unknown contaminant seems to be more commonly applied to weed that's coming out of the UK. Perhaps it's harmless but bulks up the weight. I'm very surprised no-one has identified and examined this substance yet.

[snow child]

cannabis, "weed" as we like to call it.Is never in sort suppy it is all about who you know and how good it is at the time. You would have to be someone that sat at home and typed all day not to be able to get some weed.Every one smokes weed, or has smoked weed, knows some one that smokes weed be proud that you smoke weed and you will never go with out it.
so there is a no crisis unless you are stuck at home and can't get out to share some words with a friend or a strager to get what you want some weed.

[Nature Boy]

^That's where the differences between our two countries come into effect. In Ireland, swimmers tend to buy weed off their friends, never off random street dealers for the most part. Many swimmers have networks of friends who regularly smoke marijuana or hash and they interact and sort each other out if one's own personal connection doesn't have anything. It seems at the moment however that the supply has simply run out. Ireland doesn't have much of a homegrow culture, it relies mainly on imports. No imports = no weed. Randomly arsing around looking for smoke would get SWIM nowhere. Believe me, he's been there.

[gibbledygook]

Not much fun if you have multiple sclerosis and getting out and about is impossible, especially now that the cannabis chocolate businesspeople have been convicted.

[Lunar Loops]

Not only is it VERY difficult to get hold of in Ireland at times (and especially rural Ireland), but SWIS tells me that even when it is available the price is absolutely crazy.

SWIS would have agreed with snow child had he been living in the UK, whilst residing there he NEVER went without and at a quarter of the price being charged here. Rural Ireland is a VERY different toking field my friend.