Free hash in Holland - and some fun consequences

I heard this story from a Dutch friend, and I'm sure a) he's completely wrong and b) I've misunderstood everything he said. We must have been drunk both of us. With that in mind, here's the story as I recall it....

It's legal to use hash in Holland. It's also legal for the "coffee shops" to sell it. We all know that.

But of course it's illegal for the coffee shops to purchase it. And as an utterly natural consequence it's illegal to grow it. Of course. Makes sense.

And yet - despite this state of things - the Dutch haven't quite managed to push the hash thing out of the gangsters' hands :-)).

So the gangsters are now growing hash in apartments, on boats, and other places.

They use artificial lights, of course. And carbon filters so it doesn't smell. They circumvent the normal electricity circuit in order to avoid detection. They force weak people to front this kind of activity, of course.

So the Dutch Police are of COURSE trying to find all these places that illegally grow the hash which can be sold legally in the coffee shops. They even use IR (infrared) devices to detect lofts and other places where the heat/lighting raise the temperature of the growth rooms. In response, the gangsters are of course insulating the rooms.

It's all very green and sustainable, I think. And lofts and bad apartments, maybe even boats? - get insulation, which saves energy. It rocks.

The Police has of course out-sourced the removal of illegal growth places that they detect. A private company is called upon, and they'll arrive shortly afterwards and remove the plants, the equipment, and what have you.

This, I think, is brilliant. The private removal company now has an interest in people creating these illegal places, of course. Just like the folks that bred rats in New York in the 1890's because they could get a bounty per rat tail they turned in - because New York City wanted to get rid of all the rats in the city, of course.

As I started out saying: I must have misheard most of this and misunderstood the rest. Even Frederic Forsyth couldn't dream this one up.

Mogens