Persecutorial modus operandi. [Hemp Forums - Chopper Sightings] : Hemp Embassy

Dear Minister; Thomas George has assured me he has written to you with my accusation about the selective enforcement modus operandi of the Cannabis Eradication Unit (CEU). 

I will go into very little detail as even the most superficial review of my assertion will result in confirmation. 

Choose any year, group of years, random years that the CEU has been active and you will learn that almost exclusively they spend their time hunting for marijuana along the East Coast (east of the escarpment).

This is the WORST area in NSW for growing marijuana. Yet the CEU claims it is great for growing marijuana. Specifically, the Northern Rivers region where I live is the worst area in the state. This is due to the much higher rainfall and humidity along the east coast compared to inland, and the heavy rains encountered in March-April-May are disaster for growing cannabis let alone commercial grade cannabis. 

Marijuana likes dry air. It is native to semi-arid Afghanistan through to monsoonal India where it is dry for most of the year. Within the regions they do visit, they almost exclusively visit land the CEU perceives to be owned by the counter culture.

They repeatedly go to ‘communes’. This is highlighted by their almost annual visits to Billens Cliff that is literally a ‘suburb of hippies’ and a place where it is IMPOSSIBLE to grow a commercial quantity of cannabis. 

Notre the CEU consistently says it is after commercial plantations. Yet its behaviour is constantly removing plants in small numbers 1,2 4, 8. No doubt if the CEU confessed their interest in small numbers they would have to fly over the suburbs to check out backyard growing. You know places like Vaucluse and Ewingsdale and Lismore Heights. 

The fact that the CEU values all plants regardless of gender (males are useless) or size at $2000 a plant plays into their ability to justify their budget but does practically nothing to stop the supply of cannabis. 

For example they often do visits during November and December before plants have sexed when often growers have multiple plants in a hole. Therefore when discovered by the CEU, e.g. 4 small unsexed plants are valued at $8000, but if they returned with the same effort during March either there would be no plants (crop failure very common) or just one female. 

Now this female might be 2 meters tall and fully laden with heads but it is still valued at just $2000. Thus CEU is geared towards early detection when there is nothing to stop a would-be grower from re-planting the same site. 

The CEU is a deterrent to commercial cannabis growing when people know the chopper might visit. However, the reverse is true as well. Commercial sized plantations being grown where you know you are not going to get visited by the chopper. 

The biggest crop I know of was harvested within 2 km of Lismore's city limits!

There are huge areas within the Lismore-Byron-Mullumbimby-Tweed area that never see the chopper. Selective enforcement of a law by the police is PERSECUTION and inimical to democracy. I am not stating you should stop the CEU from going to the places they visit almost year in year out but that such regularity is not needed to ensure no commercial crops will be grown. 

The failure of the CEU to virtually never look west of the escarpment proves the prejudice in the CEU modus operandi   Did I hear someone say Griffith? Tamworth? Broken Hill? The CEU does go to Armadale but where do they visit…Bellingen and Thora! More counter culture outposts! 

One bit of history.

Approximately 18 months after the police were embarrassed by OFF-DUTY officers at a party getting dressed up in black make-up, the CEU while ON-DUTY (circa 1994) as they were landing on multiple occupancy land would lower a LARGE flag depicting the skull and cross bones.

This attitude towards this sub-group of cannabis users remains today as it did then. The proof is in the pudding of where the CEU almost exclusively goes year in year out. 

Tired of the persecution, I hope you take this accusation seriously and investigate the modus operandi of the CEU. 

PS- I have sent this letter also through the NSW police website to the commissioner. i wouldn't have but hadn't located your email at that moment of impulsivity.  

Treefully, Paul Recher 

 

Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most - that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial tasks, have the least. Eugene V. Debs 

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. Eugene V. Debs

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