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

[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?

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

[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.

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

[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.