02/05/2025
“All we care about is having the best-quality evidence,” says Detective Chief Inspector Ian Hughes, sitting in a poky office with a smile on his face. He is explaining why Essex Police has invested thousands of pounds in the past three years in cultivating cannabis. Given the success of Mr Hughes’s little operation, other forces may soon follow.
To grasp what he is up to, you need to know about the Proceeds of Crime Act of 2002. That law, known to British coppers as POCA, enables police forces to confiscate assets bought with illegal profits, such as houses or cars, and keep up to half of the money for themselves. In court, proving ill-gottenness is hard. But when it comes to drug seizures, forces can take the street value of their haul from a dealer’s other assets—to deter future misdeeds.
Authorities have become pukka at using POCA. Many now have specialist teams. Police wires light up with news of spectacular catches: gold watches, Ferraris, Surrey mansions. Over the past six years police forces have recovered around £300m ($400m) a year from criminals in this way. The money goes back into fighting crime, or funds community projects.
There was a hiccup, though. When the police bust a cannabis farm, they often seize plants that have yet to fully mature. That means the crop is still wet, weighs more and doesn’t contain the concentrated THC that gets smokers high. Dealers with good lawyers were able to argue successfully against confiscation orders, claiming that plants were “mouldy”, and therefore worthless, or that the yield had been estimated inaccurately.
This is where Mr Hughes’s scheme comes in. When Essex Police busts a w**d farm, it now nurtures and dries the plants it keeps for evidence, in a “bespoke facility”. A team of six officers have learned to do it “just as well as the criminals”, says Mr Hughes, ensuring they harvest as much as the dealers would have. It’s a busy job: the team deals with around 1,000 busts each year. Last month a Colchester drug dealer was ordered to pay £53,000 or face prison.
Essex Police is not alone. Several other large forces are rumoured to be tending the herb. One is using a converted shipping container. Essex has adapted a portakabin with climate and temperature controls. The public can celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurialism or bemoan clumsy laws that divert the police into pointless pot-cultivation. Or, perhaps, do both.
Asked for a tour, Mr Hughes demurs, though he does say the facility and incinerator are located securely, next to an armed police unit, lest anyone get ideas. Connoisseurs might lament all that lovely crop going up in smoke. For Mr Hughes, however, the whole scheme gives quite a high."
