Its a common enough story in the UK under the current political climate.

Officers from the Somerset Constabulary obtained a search warrant and attended the property on January 26th 2008. On entering the premises the attending officers discovered a mature cannabis garden being nurtured hydroponically.

A 47 year old was arrested on suspicion of cultivating cannabis and taken to Bridgewater Police Station.

The man, who fully admitted the offence, was later given a formal caution and all the equipment and plants seized and destroyed. Thats the law after all.

Home Grown is Safest
People up and down the country, and in their tens of thousands, are growing their own cannabis as the supplies available from drug dealers are either too expensive, or contaminated with adulterants. And on the face of it this is possibly no bad thing as anything which takes drug dealers out of business is in my opinion at least, a result.

This categorically removes the so called "gateway theory" from the picture, which is a harm reduction measure by proxy, and isn't that the common aim we're all supposedly working towards? Harm reduction?

Disorganised Crime
To clarify, we're not talking about Vietnamese organised crime rings here. We're talking about locals. Indiginous, tax paying members of the local community. People you will see at the supermarket, at the doctors surgery, or doing the school run at 3.00pm on a weekday. People like you and me.

Their crime, is no more serious than if they were caught brewing their own beer cider or wine and if you want to talk about "potent", a friend of mine used to brew an elderflower wine which would down an elephant, and should have had a government health warning attached to it, but I digress...

It seems someone in the Bridgewater Constabulary has taken an executive decision on this case as although it says the 47 year old grower (no spring chicken) was cautioned, there is no talk of a court case.

So whilst many in the country, if they were asked for their opinion by way of a public referendum, without fear of persecution or reprisal, would say the police should not have called in the first place as a 47 year old man is well able to make the decision on whether or not he uses cannabis, its well understood the police have a job to do and if someone lodges a complaint (again under the current laws) then the police are legally obliged to attend. When they do, if a criminal offence is being committed, action is taken.

Knee-Jerk
But its common to read about "knee-jerk" reactions to the sight of a hydroponic set up. The words "Factory" or "Farm" are bandied about with impunity, blurring the facts.

In this instance however we should loudly congratulate the Bridgewater Constabulary for carrying out their job with the minimum of fuss. Even if it is a job a lot of regular "beat bobbies" would rather not be doing, if someone actually took the time to ask them.

In the grand scheme of things, drug policy is meant to be about harm reduction. So this begs the question; has this really stopped the 47 year old man from using cannabis permanently?

I don't think so. If he wasn't growing for personal gain, he obviously wasn't distributing cannabis around the local area right? Else the Police would have arrested him as sure as eggs is eggs.

So what exactly did this bust achieve? Not a lot in the big picture which relates to drug use in the UK and it seems to me this is a lost opportunity for the government.

In the US they have a system which not very many people know about. A system for taxing cannabis, or marijuana as its known across the pond. Same plant, different name.

The tax is levied at around $3.50 or £1.25 per gram, and it seems to me that, in a situation like this, which see's a responsible adult visited by police, wouldn't it be better just to levy a tax on the cannabis and let the grower keep it? Because the fact is as soon as he was released by the Police he will be out talking with a criminal (drug dealer) to score a deal and thats the truth of the matter. Thats how effective a drug policy we operate in this country.

Here's the math's;

lets say a grower had 10 plants, with an average harvest (dry weight) of around an ounce per plant. Regardless of what you will read in news reports, your average grower who grows for himself, is happy if he or she see's an ounce per plant, dry weight.

So thats 10 ounces of dry cannabis, or 280 grams.

Taxed at £1.25 per gram = £350 towards the Policemans ball. From a single grower. Multiply the same equation by tens of thousands of growers and it seems to me the Exchequer is missing out on a nice little earner.

Think about it!