A Finnish business that specialises in the sale of gardening equipment has been raided by local police under suspicions that the operation is deliberately promoting the purchase and use of home cultivation equipment for growing cannabis.
According to Helsingin Sanomat the business claims on its website that its three outlets across the country, in Tampere, Turku and Helsinki, specialise in hydroponics. This includes such equipment as grow-lamps, growing chambers, ventilation systems, fertilisers, timers and measuring devices.
Tampere police have also searched a range of addresses belonging to customers. “We have found a significant amount of marijuana in the searches,” said Officer Jari Luoto. Home growers are also alleged to feature prominently on internet message boards.
Luoto has stated that an unconfirmed number of people involved in the business have been detained with several remanded under suspicion of the promotion of drug-related crime. The business appears to have ground to a halt while police investigations continue.
The question of whether selling hydroponic equipment can be construed as drug promotion has no precedent in Finnish law. “This investigation is a kind of precedent. The matter will undoubtedly be evaluated in various court instances,” claimed Luoto.
The University of Eastern Finland’s Professor of Criminal and Procedural Law, Matti Tolvanen, is hesitant to label cultivation equipment as drug crime promotion. He argues that the primary use of any merchandise outweighs isolated incidents of illegal usage and also whether the seller is aware of the intentions of the buyer. “The police are testing their boundaries. After all, selling knives is not illegal, even though they are used to commit homicides,” Tolvanen reasons.
Greetings,
I don’t use marijuana, and never have since I have chronic asthma.Yet I spent many a day defending weed smokers against corporate laws against marijuana. And reading this garbage has me shocked, at the very least.
Finland is a country of depressed alcoholics whom pop about 700,000 anti-depressants every day. Depressed because the alcohol makes you that way. Alcohol that kills 2.5 million every year AND causes brain damage. Go out on the weekend, and half the people in the city will be shit faced stupid on booze.
You come from a country addicted to tobacco, a drug that kills 6.5 million people every year, 600,000 of them never smoked a day in their lives.
And yet you lot throw weed smokers in jail although it has never, ever killed anyone, has been proven to shrink cancer tumours, control pain, CREATE brain cells, and act as an anti-depressant, amongst other benefits.
I thought Finnish people were relatively intelligent, but this is an act of a very stupid bunch of people that cannot think logically, rationally, or critically. Do you not get that the laws against marijuana are corporate driven? And that the reason you likely don’t get that is because your brain has been damaged by the corporate poison legally and egregiously abused in Finland? And you really , really are too naive about the integrity of your government, whom are no different than any other, Corporate whores.
Get a grip people, and stop letting the corporations throw innocents in jail so that they might maintain profit.
wake up.
herc
8. At present it is estimated that marijuana’s LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.
“9. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.”
Source:
US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, “In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition” (Docket #86-22), September 6, 1988, p. 56-57.
It’s funny how an industry can be thought of as legitimate and one someone shows that it can be used for something considered bad it stigmatizes companies. Not sure why, but I figure Finland would be pretty lax on cannabis laws. Guess I was wrong.
Funny thing with Jari Luoto is that his friends, NHL player Ville Nieminen and an unnamed doorman got mixed up in some dodgy business. Nieminen sent 20 000 dollars to the doorman, who used it to buy cocaine.
When the doorman was caught, Jari Luoto had to say he cannot investigate this himself, as he is a very good friend of this guy. Rumours say that the doorman is actually Luoto’s child’s godfather.
I find this very peculiar that Jari Luoto, who is one of very Harry Anslinger -like characters in Finland is mixed up with cocaine dealers, but is busting weed growers…
Thanks for the great article! We will add this story to our blog as we have readers love to read articles like this.
Here in Finland we call this reilu meininki. (fair play) ;)