Criminals Using Drones To Find Cannabis Farms and Steal Crops

schwit1 (797399) writes "There has been a huge surge in the number of hidden cannabis farms across Halesowen, Cradley Heath and Oldbury, towns on the outskirts of rural Shropshire some seven miles from central Birmingham. They require hydroponic lights for the marijuana plants to grow – and the huge amounts of excess heat given off make them easily spottable for a would-be criminal with a drone carrying infrared cameras. One such man says that after finding a property with a cannabis farm he and his crew either burgle or 'tax' the victim."

Comments

Just one more reason

[lawnboy5-O]

... to legalize and regulate.

Re:Just one more reason

[ShanghaiBill]

... to legalize and regulate.

That is unlikely to happen in Britain. Politicians won't legalize it because there are too many special interest groups that want to keep the status quo of the endless "War on Drugs" and all the money that flows into it. In America, it has only been legalized in states with citizen referendums, so the politicians were bypassed.

Re:Just one more reason

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason there were violent gangs who made money selling alcohol back in prohibition was because it was illegal. Once alcohol was legalized, it took a lot of power away from gangs. Legalizing weed would take some money/power away from cartels which is always a good thing.

Re:Just one more reason

[ShanghaiBill]

Legalizing weed would take some money/power away from cartels which is always a good thing.

Sure. But it would also take money/power from the police, police unions, prison guards unions, etc.

Re:Just one more reason

[nbauman]

Sure. But it would also take money/power from the police, police unions, prison guards unions, etc.

Come on, I refuse to believe that these entities are actively working to put more people in prison for no good reason.

That's bullshit, police unions represents police officers, usually union policies are made by vote.

I refuse to believe that most police officers want to lock up people for no good reason

I believe it. In New York City, we had the stop and frisk laws. Officers got caught on tape telling the cops under their command to fill a quota of arrests -- and to arrest black people. Most of the arrests were pot busts after illegal searches. (Possessing marijuana was a violation, not a crime. The cops forced people to commit a misdemeanor by emptying their pockets and displaying marijuana, which was a crime.) That was the subject of a lawsuit, which was also reported on Slashdot. It all came out in court, and Judge Schendlin wrote it up in her written decision.

The new police commissioner was complaining that cops arrest people towards the end of their shift so that they can get overtime pay. Think about that for a second. They're arresting people so that they can make more money.

As I recall, one of the strongest opponents of liberalizing drug laws in California was the prison guards' union. It was pretty clear that they wanted to keep the prisons full to protect their jobs.

That said, they may very well have insights into why weed is bad. They may have experience traffic accidents, etc.

Oh, yeah. Who has more insight into why weed is bad -- cops? Or doctors, psychiatrists and scientists?

Re:Just one more reason

[Sloppy]

Legalizing weed would take some money/power away from cartels which is always a good thing.

It's not a good thing, if your financial interests are aligned with the cartels.

If I'm on Al Capone's payroll and you ask for my opinion of the 21st Amendment, I'm going to say it's a bad idea.

Duh...

[Mashiki]

In the old days, criminals would just follow others out or use dogs trained to sniff out other peoples grow ops in some farmers field, woods/back wood lot/etc. They're just going hi-tech, nothing to see in that sense.

So much nonsense in terms

[Khyber]

"They require hydroponic lights for the marijuana plants to grow"

What the fuck is a hydroponic light? Are we talking sonoluminescence or what? That's gotta be inefficient.

You mean an HID light, which produces tons of heat and is easy traceable from both ballast noise and heat.

Shoulda gone LED, suckers.

Re:So much nonsense in terms

[plover]

LED lamps do not put out nearly as much heat as High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps. I have a (disconnected) 400W HPS that I could easily have cooked on the top of the reflector, and probably broiled meat directly beneath it. I replaced it with a 144W LED floodlamp, and now I can hold the operating heat sink in my hand; the glass lens pane on the bottom is at room temperature. I am no longer concerned about fire safety in my house.

One major difference, though, is I'm growing orchids, which require far less light than cannabis. I need only two 144W LED floodlamps to illuminate a 72 square foot area. The pot growers will cram as many 400 W lamps in a grow operation as they can, sometimes a dozen or more in a single small room, whatever they can draw from the circuit breaker panel. They'll keep a large external vent fan running year round, including the dead of winter, to keep the room from igniting.

If I were to grow pot, I'm sure I'd need a lot more light fixtures, but even a dozen LED lamps in the same room probably wouldn't risk burning my house down.

Re:So much nonsense in terms

[marsu_k]

My sister-in-law works developing LED lamps. She's a biologist, was headhunted from the university after her PhD (that was about how different types of UV light affect plant growth) by some engineers. Basically what she does is she tests various configurations of LED lights and fixtures, checks how they affect plant growth, tells the engineers to build "that one". Rinse and repeat.

What she's told me, and I have no reason to doubt this as she's not trying to sell me anything (and the fact that she's very proud of her work ethics), they're getting very much better results than with HIDs. With much less power consumption, obviously. Now, they specifically haven't tested cannabis, but I have a hard time believing the light requirements would be so drastically different than from other very light-needy plants.

The thing is though, they're not yet selling to consumers, just to large commercial greenhouses. The company is still early stages. And she's been unwilling to loan me a unit for test purposes, dammit ;) But I'm willing to bet in a few years HIDs will no longer be the choice, at least when it comes to power consumption and heat; I expect the lights will be quite pricey, at least initially.

Re:So much nonsense in terms

[Khyber]

"HPS is in the >100 lumen/watt ballpark"

Only in their more inefficient ranges like 250 and 400w. 600w can get up to 160l/w.

"LEDs, while capable of much more efficiency when operated at currents below their maximum ratings, usually operate near the same 100lm/W efficiencies when operated at maximum current"

Current LED tech is 130+ l/w and Cree's already popped 200+ at room temp 5600K 80mA drive with their MK-R, and in the lab, they've already hit 303+ at room temp 5150K color temp and 350mA drive.

" But a 400W LED fixture would produce nearly the same heat overall. It just wouldn't get as hot ;-) "

Comparing 400w HID to 400w LED, full power, the LED will produce on average 15-20% less heat, with that heat difference made up as light output.

Re:So much nonsense in terms

[marsu_k]

Why would they need less power consumption. The lumens per watt of most HID lamps is the same or better than LEDs. This Wikipedia page has several examples of the efficiency of different kinds of lights. Most of the LED examples they give show around 50-100 lumens per watt. For metal halide, they show 65-115 l/w, for high pressure sodium it's 85-150 l/w and for low pressure sodium it's 100-200 l/w. It sounds to me like the HID lamps are MORE efficient than the LEDs, so why is it obvious that the LEDs would use "much less power consumption"?

I'm not pretending to be an expert on the issue, as stated this is second hand information - however, that Wikipedia page seems to describe the kind of lights one would use in general lighting. The lights she's shown me are nothing of the kind, mostly a mixture of red(ish) and blue(ish) LEDs. Apparently that's what plants crave (I suppose the light has electrolytes).

Economic Threat

[Ukab the Great]

This will lead to thousands of drug enforcement pilot jobs getting offshored to afghanistan where militants can remotely fly drug search drones around England for 100th of the price of a guy in a Cessna.

Where?

[freeze128]

Halesowen? Cradley Heath? Oldbury? Shropshire? Where are these towns, Middle Earth?

Re:Where?

[dkf]

Halesowen? Cradley Heath? Oldbury? Shropshire? Where are these towns, Middle Earth?

Where do you think Tolkien stole the names from? Though he should've avoided getting creative with "Mordor" and stuck with Wolverhampton.

Which is why the smart grow underground

[Karmashock]

Many growers have been doing this for years. Its not a big deal. You dig out a big hole in the ground, line it with concrete, throw a roof on it, and then pile dirt on top of the roof. No infrared signature.

You can even put it under your house or another greenhouse that has vegetables and flowers. If anyone quizzes you about all the materials you say its for that.

There is an issue with the smell. Nothing you can really do about dogs besides creating a hermetically sealed compartment that has very serious airfilters. Which is sort of the Walter White solution.

Anyway, build underground... its easy and works.

Re:Cartels will be fine....

[antifoidulus]

Except for that's not how it's panning out in places like Colorado and the Netherlands, where it's largely smaller growers who are making money....

Re:Left-Wing Propoganda

[Plunky]

Colorado is (narrowly) governed by the Democrats, not right wing

Hello America!

I think you will find that both the Democrats and the Republicans are firmly right wing.

Sincerely,
The Rest of the World

Re:Cartels will be fine....

[erikkemperman]

Except for that's not how it's panning out in places like Colorado and the Netherlands, where it's largely smaller growers who are making money....

The Netherlands here. Not quite. We have this utterly silly situation where the selling of mj is sort of legal, up to a certain weight and only in designated establishments (the famous coffeeshops). However the growing and distributing is quite illegal.

The mom and pop growers are entirely insignificant compared to organized criminals. The latter produce way more than local demand, so much of that is exported.

Re:Left-Wing Propoganda

[SuricouRaven]

No, most right-wing people *claim* they lean libertarian.

And they do. Except on drugs. And media regulation. And pornography. And abortion. And federal abstinance-only funding. And gay marriage. And government religious endorsement. And assisted suicide.

'Libertarian' in the US is essentially a codeword for 'conservative, but don't want to admit it.' The only true libertarian aspect they have left is their economic policy, which stems less from any form of idealism than it does from the influence of corporate pressure groups who regard any form of regulation as a direct attack on their profit-making ability.

Catch the drone with a Net Gun !

[advid.net]

The best answer would be a Net Gun.

From market or DIY. That's $400 or $60-$80.

I think many of the catched drone parts can be salvaged, after the fall.

Re:Left-Wing Propoganda

[Ginger Unicorn]

It's everyone's business, because we all have live on this planet together. Most of the world realises this, and we'd all feel a lot more comfortable if America would realise it too.

Re:Cartels will be fine....

[erikkemperman]

That is correct. Like I said, an utterly silly state of affairs. So the output of these coffeeshops is legal (provided they respect the weight limits, don't sell to underage visitors, etc) while their inputs aren't.

The way it is now (but this is being debated constantly) we are basically not enjoying the major potential benefit of decriminalisation, which is taking the wind out of the sails of organized crime.

Re:Left-Wing Propoganda

[drinkypoo]

Then I guess Iraq was OK. After all, Hussein was abusing the locals and funding terror in the rest of the world. Glad we've got that cleared up.

Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to look like a dumbshit on Slashdot. Quick quiz, how did Saddam Hussein come to power in the first place?

Re:Cartels will be fine....

[Copid]

For all of the badness of Philip Morris, I think I'd still rather they be running the show than the guys who kidnap busloads of people, rape them or make them fight to the death, and then bury them in the desert.

I don't think that's just personal squeamishness talking. It may very well be that the sociopaths who did bad stuff for the cigarette companies are just as evil as the sociopaths who run the cartels. But they do seem to control themselves a little better when they can make tons of money by staying in the law's good graces.