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The accidental cannabis plantation. Photo: Unterfranken Polizei

Farmer starts 'accidental cannabis plantation'

Published: 5 Sep 12 10:52 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120905-44777.html

An elderly German farmer who sowed bird seed hoping for a crop of sunflowers accidentally started his own cannabis plantation – and was mortified when police arrived to investigate.

The 74-year-old Bavarian opened the door to narcotics officers on Tuesday, who told him that they had come about the cannabis he was growing on the farm – neighbours had noticed the roughly 1,000, three-metre high plants covering the field and called the police.

They took the baffled farmer to the 300 square metre field in the Aschaffenburg area, and pointed out the huge crop of plants that the farmer had failed to recognise were cannabis, local paper the Express said on Wednesday.

The farmer said he had wanted sunflowers, and because he did not have any seeds, had scattered handfuls of bird food across the field and hoped for the best.

But as the bird food was a mix of sunflower and hemp seeds, the man never got his field full of flowers, but instead a vast stretch of leafy green plants he could not identify.

Once the impromptu botany lesson was over, he proceeded to climb in his tractor and destroy the hemp under the watchful eye of the police – who later said in a statement that the plants were not actually strong enough to give anyone a high.

"This kind of thing has never happened in the area before," a police spokesman told The Local. "He only wanted a few nice sunflowers."

The Local/jcw

What do you think? Leave your comment below.


Your comments about this article:

15:23 September 5, 2012 by lucksi
And now let us look how things are in the US when something like this happens:

Paramilitary no-knock raid at 2 am, the guy and his dogs are shot dead and 9 bystanders wounded, the home burned down due to the flashbangs and the field nuked from orbit.
16:15 September 5, 2012 by raandy
lucksi LOL

ya that is not so far from the way the DEA operates. They would and have shot the suspects dogs, they tear peoples homes apart and take anything they want.

This guy who claims he had no idea what he had, would have lost his farm and been shipped off to a Federal institution for a minimum sentence of at least 2 years.

as the song goes "guns, money or lawyers wouldn't get you out of that."
16:39 September 5, 2012 by Englishted
Nice neighbours ,and is growing hemp illegal in German even though "the plants were not actually strong enough to give anyone a high".

That is because they are the same family of plants but do not have the same properties, although the U.S. Government don't seem to understand this not unlike the Bavarian police.
16:56 September 5, 2012 by hanskarl
Hemp was grown in large quantities for producing rope. Same in the US where dormant fields will at times sprout the same type and genus of plant as this farmer unwittingly produced. Sorry chaps but your description of what happens in the US is ludicrous as usual.
17:19 September 5, 2012 by lucksi
Hemp is not illegal to grow in Germany. I do not know if you need to tell whatever authoroties we have for that, but my neighbouring farmer once grew hemp. Then the hippies came in droves thinking they had stumbled upon heaven.

Even signs saying that it is the non smoking kind of hemp did not help and people continued to pick some for, erm, home use or so they were thinking.

Needless to say, he did not plant hemp again.
19:42 September 5, 2012 by melbournite
man, I gotta get me some of that birdseed
19:59 September 5, 2012 by DOZ
The Birds must be pissed
20:16 September 5, 2012 by schneebeck
Hemp and Marijuana are the same species of plant, Cannabis sativa.

Hemp plants contain very little THC but are important for industrial purposes.

Marijuana plants contain much more THC and are important for "recreational" purposes.

A nosy neighbor would easily think a hemp plant is a marijuana plant. They look the same.
21:34 September 5, 2012 by Steve1949
He must not have been a very informed farmer regardless. Hemp plants and Sunflower plants don't look exactly alike.
23:20 September 5, 2012 by Omufu
Good job by the cops, not overreacting.

Same thing happened to my friend's grandmother. Gigantic marijuana plant in her garden. Oops.
00:51 September 6, 2012 by HeyDudeWhatsUp
Now for the US version of the same event:

Time: 5:45AM

Loud knock at the door.

"POLICE! SEARCH WARRANT!" 12 men wearing full riot gear with their faces covered enter in with MP5's and laser sights.

Dog barks.

POLICE SHOOT DOG. DOG WHIMPERS AS IT DIES.

"Don't f**cking move!" The police shout at the crying home owner.

"Why did you shoot my dog?"

Police fire TASER at home owner, "STOP RESISTING!"

Wife comes out of bedroom, crying. "What's going on?"

She is immediately tackled to the ground.

Police immediate Miranda home owners, "You have the right to remain silent...."

"What is going on here?" The home owner says.

"You are being charged with manufacture of a controlled substance for trafficking. You are facing 20 years in prison."

"But I was only trying to grow sun-flowers."

The police men erupt in laughter synonymously. "That's a good one. Hey Bob, did you hear that one? He was just trying to grow sunflowers."

"No, seriously. I was."

"Someone get that dead dog out of here. Book the wife, too. She knew about it."
12:40 September 9, 2012 by raandy
HeyDudeWhatsUp Excellent, !!!
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