[Faline]

Crooks may soon fear the pong arm of the law thanks to scratch and sniff cannabis cards.

Police will today begin handing them out in a bid to help the public recognise the smell of powerful skunk weed.

The Crimestoppers campaign comes after a recent report said cannabis farms are being moved from industrial properties to residential homes.

Hotspots are West and South Yorkshire, London, Manchester and Avon & Somerset.

Cops have seized more than £200million worth of the Class B drug in the past two years.

Gangs cost the country £400million a year in stolen energy – rigging mains supplies to get free electricity for high-powered lights used to grow cannabis.

Crimestoppers said that drug crimes not only affects individual users but also compromise the safety of communities.

It is often linked to people smuggling and other types of organised crime.

Gangs steal electricity by wiring hydroponic growing systems and high powered halogen lights to the mains supply or by altering meters.

Some estimate it costs the UK economy around £400m per year in stolen energy.

Over the last two years police have seized over one million cannabis plants, with an estimated value of over £200 million.

Roger Critchell, of Crimestoppers, said: “The cards will help people recognise signs of cannabis cultivation.”

The Association of Chief Police Officers lead for drugs, Andy Bliss, said: “Closing down cannabis farms and arresting the criminals who run and organise them is a key focus in drugs policing.

"This is because we recognise that these farms are often run by organised criminals but also because they bring crime and anti-social behaviour into local communities causing real harm and leaving people feeling unsafe.

“We also know that many people don’t realise that the empty, run down house or flat on their street with people coming and going late at night may actually be a commercial cannabis farm.

"It’s not just the stereotype of the remote rural set or disused industrial estate unit.

"The Crimestoppers campaign will help members of the public to recognise the signs and smell of a cannabis farm.

"The police will use the intelligence generated by the campaign to help build on recent successes in tackling this issue.”

[Hobbslefthand]

another waste of taxpayers money. Do your job yourself lazy coppers.

[johnleeknoefler]

No one needs scratch and sniff pot cards here in California since powerful hybrids are easily obtained.

[johnleeknoefler]

I just noticed that Netherlands used one of these cards to bust Illegal pot farms over two years ago. Fortunately they actually distilled cannibis oils and then infused printed cards with the oil so that would be tipsters would know what the pot really smells like.
On a positive note, many people realized that the cards were actually containing real THC and could be smoked for a nice buzz. Way to go Netherlands!!!
Joint Effort: Dutch Utilities Help Police Smoke Out Pot Farmers
The real story is that about 5000 illegal pot farms are shut down every year and each year about 5000 new pot farms start up. And since they are illegal and police are using the electric usage to find the indoor farms the growers have taken to secretly tapping into the grid to steal electricity they would of been happy to pay for. In response, the utilities have been aiding police in finding the farms with more sophisticated grid monitoring devices. Scratch and sniff cards were just one more tool designed to help people who might want to tip off police.

[Kanda444]

ffs.... *walks out before i say too much*

[AmericanIllusions]

Fucking retarded ass govt. Why is this still an issue? Let everyone smoke it FFS but its no profit in that

[icheerthebull]

goverments just dont like it when the people who sell drugs are not their mates. For every £20 a MS sufferer spends on high grade skunk its £100 their buddy looses selling betaferon or something. Not to mention all the overtime the coppers get, plus the arms dealers selling weapons to organisations like the DEA

[kellyhound]

there are sofisticated cannibis sniffers on the market that detect a few molecules of cannibis, so easy for cops to drive down a street and see where the level are the highest.

[johnleeknoefler]

Originally Posted by kellyhound ↗

there are sofisticated cannibis sniffers on the market that detect a few molecules of cannibis, so easy for cops to drive down a street and see where the level are the highest.

. That wouldn't even work here in California. Police would be chasing thier tails like "ring around the rosy".

[Kanda444]

god, this kills me...

it's fuckin legal where i live... meanwhile, in other parts of the world....