Cops try to ‘weed’ ganja out of homes

Chennai

The city police have a ‘weed’ problem in its backyard. This is not about tending to lawns at the headquarters or homes of top officials, but the small secret gardens where Chennaiites grow ganja in plant pots.

In only three weeks, the police have come across at least three such cases which led to the arrest of four people. One of them claimed he was growing marijuana for medicinal purposes, while all of them said that they did not grow the plant to sell its leaves. 

The number of plants found were indeed small and insufficient to make a business out of it but that will hardly provide the plant growers any respite in legal matters. 

According to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, cultivating the marijuana is an offence (section 8b). Law books ask the police to check: if the cultivation was for personal use; if the plant was grew naturally or was it nurtured, the number of such plants found, among other aspects. 

Senior officers said that even if people claimed that they were growing the plant as a hobby, it did not make their crime insignificant. They also fear that youth posting selfies with marijuana plants might turn into an undesirable trend. “It sends a bad message to the society when you post a selfie with ganja grown on your terrace. We cannot turn a blind eye,” a senior police officer said. Taking action, he added, was necessary to keep matters under check. 

Meanwhile, advocate Paul Kanagaraj — who is defending one of the people arrested recently — said that there was a time when possession of ganja in smaller quantities for personal use was not considered a crime.

Though it is among the most easily available and cheapest psychotropic substance off the street across the country, the use and sale of ganja is illegal in India. 

Kanagaraj added that if the police can consider it an offence if people grow the plants knowing that it is marijuana. 

While cases related to the recent arrests are being processed, the city police wants to send a clear message, especially to the youth: growing ganja in your terrace will land you in trouble, even if you are not a peddler or a user.

WHAT IS GANJA? 

• The flowering or fruit bearing portion of the cannabis plant is known as ganja in India. There are dozens of informal names for it, including weed and pot. It is the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the leaves which has psychoactive properties that act on the mind. The chemical changes brain function and alters perception, mood, consciousness or behaviour.
• Unlike most psychotropic substances, marijuana has a lot of ardent advocates cutting across various sections, including traditionalists and libertarians, lawyers and politicians and medical experts. 
• Researchers, however, stress that the damage that marijuana can cause gets magnified on teenagers. Their brains are still developing, and the effects that THC has on the various parts of the brain could be serious according to research abroad.
• It is also alleged to be a ‘stepping stone’ or ‘gateway’ drug, an intoxicant that encourages a user to try stronger, processed drugs.

MARIJUANA ABROAD 

• Marijuana is sold over the counter at exclusive cafes in the Netherlands, while a few other countries in Scandinavia and Latin America have relaxed the rules to permit its recreational use.
• The states of California, Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon in the United States have relaxed the rules that permit usage, but under strict conditions. But this is set to change as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an ardent opponent of legalisation of marijuana, has directed federal prosecutors to enforce the law aggressively.
• Ahead of legalising marijuana for recreational use by the end of this year, the government of British Columbia, Canada, is reportedly considering to permit cultivating a maximum of four plants per household, but they should not be visible to the public.

RECENT CASES

• On Sunday, the police arrested a youth who was growing ganja in his terrace garden. This came to light after his friend posted a selfie with the plant on his social media account. The latter, too, was picked up with five other friends.
• On the same day, in Kancheepuram, it was a temple watchman who had been secretly growing the cannabis plant in the temple’s backyard. The police were tipped off by someone who was denied access to that part of the temple.
• In the last week of January, the police arrested Charles Edwin Jayaraj, a 49-year-old writer, for growing six-foot tall ganja plants at his terrace in KK Nagar. He was booked under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Jayaraj claimed that he had been using the leaves in his food for its supposed medicinal value, and said he was not aware that growing ganja in his terrace garden was an offence. He also claimed that he never sold the leaves to anyone.
• In October 2015, a musician named Ashok was arrested in Valsaravakkam for growing ganja plants at home.

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