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The Swedish drug market may be heading for a trend break with smaller imports and a higher proportion of domestic cannabis crops. More effective customs work and border restrictions during the pandemic increase criminals’ motivation to cultivate, according to drug police Lennart Karlsson.
Cannabis cultivation is likely to increase in Sweden, according to drug police Lennart Karlsson. In the picture, the crop that was discovered in January this year, the largest crop in Sweden.
Illegal cannabis imports are declining due to the more efficient work of customs and police in Europe, but also due to border restrictions caused by the spread of the coronavirus. This means that the incentive to start large-scale home farms increases for criminals because it has become more difficult and expensive to smuggle drugs, emphasizes Lennart Karlsson of the Stockholm Municipal Police and also president of the Swedish Association of Anti-Drug Police.
– It is still too early to say that, but we will probably see a trend break where there will be a transition to start again with home growing, he says.
The effective work of the Spanish police has reduced the influx of cannabis from North Africa. In Sweden, large-scale raids have been carried out in recent years when large quantities of contraband drugs have been seized. During the first half of 2020, customs seized more cannabis and cocaine than in 2019.
Lennart Karlsson compares himself to what it looked like ten years ago in Sweden, when the demand for marijuana was high and there was a large home cultivation. Then the trend reversed, demand for hashish increased, and imported drugs predominated.
– In three, four years, we may have a problem similar to that of ten years ago, where home growing represents a large part of the market, says Karlsson.
This week, police raided two cannabis farms in two smaller Skåne towns and found large quantities of drugs, and earlier this year ten people were convicted of participating in what is described as the largest cannabis farm in Sweden. In a barn in Lekåsa on the outskirts of Vara in Skaraborg, about 3,400 cannabis plants were grown, at least 400 kilos of drugs had been manufactured in the factory. Recognition leader Peter Sundblad has previously said that it was the electricity supplier who raised the alarm about abnormally high electricity consumption, previously three cannabis plantations have been found in the area.
– I don’t think this is unique in Vara and Essunga. Within a semicircle from Gothenburg to the countryside for an hour and a half, are these places, says Peter Sundblad, head of the police reconnaissance group in Västra Skaraborg.
Often times, it is in the countryside that criminals choose to locate the business, buying large properties that are remote in the hope of avoiding prying eyes. But often it is the neighbors who sound the alarm that something is not right, according to Lennart Karlsson:
– In the field, you usually keep track of your neighbors. The crops that have been able to continue undisturbed as far as I know are rather those that have existed in industrial areas, where there is no reaction to the fact that there is a lot of traffic to the property.
This is cannabis
Cannabis is a collective name for products extracted from the cannabis plant.
Hash is the resin that comes from the flowers of the female plant and dries into brown cakes.
Marijuana is made up of compressed and dried superior leaves and flowers and contains a lower content of the cannabinoid THC than hashish.
According to the WHO, cannabis is the most common illegal drug in the world.
Several countries, including Canada, have legalized cannabis and in several countries it is allowed for medical use.
Source: NE
