Hemp plants, just legally planted on a field near Riel. The plants are intended for animal feed. There are more of those fields, but they are not completely without risk. When it gets dark, they attract dealers and they come with secateurs.
For people who traveled down the A27 towards Walibi or Lowlands it was a landmark. You could smell it well: the mega plantation. At Almere, the cannabis plants swayed in the wind. Visible along the highway.
Legal hemp grew there a few years ago. A plant that people have used for thousands of years to make rope, fodder or clothing. It is also found in rabbit food. There are such plantations all over Europe.
The big difference with the drug plants is that the active substance is missing. So there is no THC in it. That makes a cannabis plant prohibited, because it does contain that substance.
“But they look the same and the smell is also the same. That’s the crazy thing,” says crime reporter Willem-Jan Joachems. “These open-air plantations are often somewhat hidden and there is a good reason for that.”
Wrong people
There was a field like this in Zevenbergen years ago. A farmer had planted hemp for fiber. Very legal, but along the busy ring road. After a while, that field attracted the wrong crowd.
“I can remember that every night there were guests sneaking through the weed. They cut the weed plants with pruning shears. And then the police were called again. They then went with flashlights through those fields after those people. Even French drug tourists turned up there among the plants. It was just wild west, really bizarre!”
‘Fake Dutch weed’
Some weed clippers managed to work unseen in Zevenbergen. “People must have fled with bags full of fake Dutch weed, because that is what it is. It’s just indistinguishable from the real thing. I heard from the police that the fake weed was mixed in bags with real weed. Or just supposedly sold as real weed. Cut for free, ‘ripped’ in fact.”
The story then went that those parties with fake Dutch weed turned up as far as France. And that a lot of money was paid for it. Because it smelled real and looked real. When it was rolled into rolling papers and the flame went in, disappointment followed.
“That must have really been a disillusionment for the buyers. That you smoke one joint after the other and feel nothing, nothing at all! So a lot of people may have come home from a rude awakening because they just couldn’t got stoned.”
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