Drug-Sniffing Drones Take To the Skies In the Netherlands

Ryan writes "Unmanned, drug-sniffing drones have been introduced in the Netherlands. They fly over houses (video), sniff for weed, and scan for grow lights. Police say they are not breaking the law because the samples can be taken without entering the building."

Comments

Um.

[adolf]

I thought weed was quasi-legal in at least the city of Amsterdam.

Would the locals care to elaborate on the incongruity of thought that I am currently experiencing?

Re:Um.

[Xenna]

No, we're not sensible. We aren't a race either.

Making cannabis semi-legal is a huge mistake. It attracts a lot of drugs tourism, from the US and UK, Germany, Belgium and France.

The result is that 4 billion euros are pumped into a half-legal economy yearly. The stores that sell it (the coffeeshops) are mostly legal, but everything else, from distributors to growers is illegal.

Some city districts have been tranformed into cannabis growing plantations. People grow large scale cannabis in their lofts and in their cellars and they can make quite a lot of money with it (usually to supplement their unemployment benefit). Of course, it's still illegal...

So if you get into trouble. You distributor won't pay you, or you get ripped off by someone who specializes in this, you have nowhere to go but to hire other criminals to protect you and your business. More and more deaths are turning up in and around cannabis plantations.

It's legal to grow up to five plants in Holland, so perfectly ordinary people start out that way. Make some money and then want to make more. To avoid detection they normally tap illegal electricity for the necessary lamps.

So what have we got here? A nice system for turning ordinary citizens into criminals. What a great idea!

It's madness in my opinion. I have nothing against legalizing cannabis, but do it the right way. Legalize everything so that professional growers (or amateurs turning professional) can make legal money with it or don't legalize it at all.

Also do it *at least* Europe-wide. We really don't need all European losers to come here to get high.

The Dutch solution is not sensible at all. It's cowardly and stupid.

BTW: One of your favourite bunch of people just killed five innocent people celebrating the queen's birthday. Perhaps you need a reality check.

X. (yeah Dutch)

Re:Um.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the netherlands, the weed-law in short:
1) You can smoke it.
2) You can buy it.
3) You cannot grow it.
4) You cannot transport it.
5) When the weed gets in the coffeeshop, it suddenly is just there, nothing was deliverd, it just 'materialized' inside the coffeeshop and it is now legal to sell and smoke.

Re:Um.

[John Betonschaar]

That's an interesting argument that's made on a regular basis by many people here. Not by mayors, politicians or coffeeshop owners though, because they're not only sensible enough to see that full-force war on cannabis does much more harm than good, but also sensible enough to interpret factual data and knowledge about hard drugs, to know that legalizing e.g. coke or heroin would result in a lot of people devastating their lives.

It's funny how some governments (the Bush adminstration to name on) think or thought the best way to prevent drug abuse is to keep hammering on cannabis as a 'gateway drug', which when tolerated would lead to more hard drugs users, effectively treating it just like heroin or cocaine. All this while here in the Netherlands we think completely the other way around: tolerating mostly harmless substances like cannabis actually prevents people getting the much more dangerous stuff, because they don't need to incriminate themselves to get heroin if they can just smoke a joint every now and then.

You could argue which of the 2 ways of dealing with the unsolvable drug problem (people will keep using drugs whatever you try to prevent them) would be 'more utalitarian' so to say. The facts seem to favour the dutch approach: we have less cannabis users, less drug-related crimes, and most importantly *much* less harddrugs users than all countries surrounding us, and most of the rest of the western world. Compared to France for example, where they've tradinionally always had a zero-tolerance attitude towards drugs, the harddrugs problems in the Netherlands are virtually non-existent.

Maybe the Obama administration will get to a somewhat more opportunistic, utalitarian view of drugs legislation. He does seem to be more of a "it doesn't have to be perfect if it's better than before, jus get things done" kind of guy than Bush.

Last but not least you're mostly right about the Netherlands playing little bitch to the EU and US, sadly. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually the dutch government will bend over and destroy everything we've built for decades to limit drug-related problems and go the way of the French or the US. Probably in exchange of a little extra influence in the EU, some cuts to the EU contributions or some other stupid exchange of ideals to hold up the illusion of a 'united Europe'.

And in a related story...

[msimm]

Dutch citizens test Dutch lawmakers sewage water and household garbage for signs of drugs or illegal activity. Citizens say they are not breaking the law because the samples can be taken without entering the building.

Re:Bad move...

[shaitand]

Exactly. This is why I am opposed to the california tax plan. It isn't that marijuana shouldn't be legal and taxed (as in sales tax and income tax the same as any other good, not a separate tax) its that the taxes they want to impose are ridiculous and largely based on current police exaggerations of black market prices.

Marijuana is only as expensive as it is because it is illegal. It's actually a pretty hardy and easy to grow plant under the light of the sun. Inside growers might get 100w per square foot, they need fans and air conditioners for climate control and carbon dioxide to supplement and expensive nutrients. Outside you have a free 2000w per square foot grow light and need a pile of shit and a hose. In cali they wanted to tax the grower for the plant and the buyer. The $100 per plant they wanted is more than the retail price of a plants output if legalized!

Re:Bad move...

[ShakaUVM]

>>If drones start to significantly hurt their business, they will invest in the development of anti-drone technology.

Huh, I just can't see a bunch of Colombians walking into General Dynamics and investing in anti-drone technologies. I mean, maybe they'll figure out that a 30 ought 6 can take one out, but that doesn't take billions. It also doesn't have the slightest impact on Columbia, since they probably don't need to use grow lights. And if they shut down production in the Netherlands, well, more demand for them to supply, right?

Fortunately, aerial flyovers of houses with thermal sensors scanning for grow lights was ruled unconstitutional in America (unconstitutional search and seizure) without a warrant, IIRC.

Re:Range?

[neumayr]

Technology is past that - UAVs are capable of some degree of autonomy, most likely enough to avoid flying into walls.
Check out what those quadcopter people are playing around with, they've got some advanced stuff, and it's safe to assume government developed UAVs are further advanced than that.

Re:News just in.

[Five Bucks!]

It's also a way to avoid international disputes about cross-border drug trade.

For example, if Canada were to effectively legalize the growing of marijuana, the cross-border trade would be enormous as American drug syndicates move to Canada to grow in safety and export to the US.

For that reason, the US wants to be assured that Canada is not relaxing its stance on the growing of marijuana. Should the US feel that is the case, then there could be all sorts of diplomatic issues.

I would be willing to guess that the issue is similar between The Netherlands and their neighbors.

Legalizing drugs would require the assent of a larger area; all of North America, for instance.