Commercial home-growing of cannabis increasing in Helsinki area
Heroin making comeback on street market
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Home cultivation of marijuana is increasingly taking on the characteristics of professional business. Meanwhile, heroin is making a comeback on the street market after a long lull.
At a police press conference on Wednesday on the illegal drug situation in the area, reporters were told that Helsinki police are raiding indoor grow-operations of cannabis much more frequently than in the early part of the decade. The operations are often quite large. Entire city apartments full of marijuana plants have been found, says Kullervo Rinne of the Helsinki Drug Police.
He says that nine grow-ops have been discovered in Helsinki this year alone.
Reijo Aarnio, Chief of the Helsinki Drug Police, says that today’s hybrids yield a crop fairly quickly, and that the potency of the strains in question make domestically-grown cannabis a sought-after commodity on the illicit drug market.
The three most common drugs in the Helsinki region are amphetamine, buprenorphine, and cannabis. Heroin is on the rise again on the street market after a long decline. Aarnio says that the new emergence of heroin began last summer.
Aarnio says that while the phenomenon is a cause for concern, there is no major surge yet.
At the beginning of the decade, buprenorphine, a pharmaceutical drug used for weaning addicts off heroin, almost completely replaced heroin. Buprenorphine is most commonly available under the brand name Subutex.
Ecstasy is on the decline, although it remains available on the black market. Cocaine, which has been fairly rare in Finland, is on the increase.
Helsinki’s drug police say they have investigated about one third more serious drug crimes last year than in the previous year. However, a few years ago, the number of crimes that were revealed was higher still. There has been a decline in recent years in the number of drug crimes not classified as serious.
Aarnio notes that the statistics suggest that resources for drug enforcement have been increasingly shifted to the investigation of serious drug crimes.
He says that the police are especially targeting the distribution of consignments of drugs that have been imported. He also says that the police departments of the Helsinki region and nearby municipalities have been working together intensely in recent years in their drug investigations.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 25.1.2007 - TODAY |
 Commercial home-growing of cannabis increasing in Helsinki area
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