German weed

Production is on the increase and the marijuana business is growing – with the products mainly destined for Holland, said Jeurgen Maurer, head of the organized crime department of the German Federal Crime Office. Dutch gangs, he said, sometime loan money to cannabis growers looking to start a farm or greenhouse in Germany.

According to the Federal Crime Office’s annual report that was released on March 28, police confiscated 28 percent more marijuana in 2007 than the previous year, and raided 83 cannabis fields and 347 sheds and greenhouses where the plants had been growing. At the same time, however, police noted that the 3.68 tons of hashish confiscated in 2007 was a decrease of 34 percent from the previous year.

The report notes that Germany has moved from being a mere transit and/or destination country for cannabis and related products to becoming a producer of the same, and follows on the heels of another report that indicated that drug use among Germans overall is declining. Last November’s annual report, unveiled by German’s anti-drug commissioner, showed that just 2.7 percent of Germans surveyed admitted to using illegal drugs, down from 3.9 percent the year before. The number of people who had died from drug abuse also dropped 2.3 percent to 1,296 cases in 2006, and the abuse of amphetamines, LSD, ecstasy and cocaine had dropped in the country overall.

The decline also represents a shift for Germany, as the percentage of people who said they used drugs at least once a year fell to 9.6 percent after steadily increasing from 4.3 percent in 1990.