Guardia Civil units deployed in La Alpujarra have carried out 21 raids so far this year and confiscated 1,200 cannabis sativa plants.

Now, when we say plants, we mean ‘almost bushes’ because some of them have been well over two metres high. We’re talking about outdoor plantations, evidently, hidden away in the foot hills of the Sierra Nevada, within woodlands.

To locate them they have used 4×4’s motorbikes and even aircraft. In fact, they needed to use a helicopter to get some of the Triffid-sized blighters out – they couldn’t destroy them in situ because they were needed as evidence.

All told, these raids, carried out in eight different municipalities within the Alpujarra have led to ten arrests.

Editorial comment: can you imagine how much money and time the State would save in police operations and judicial proceedings if it legalized cannabis? There’d be plenty of empty cells in the prisons too, with all the related savings there.