Dutch police ruin legal cannabis experiment

Dutch police swooped on what they thought was an illegal cannabis farm only to partly dismantle a scientific experiment, the University of Wageningen said.
The Telegraph
Sep. 08, 2009

"More than half the plants were destroyed," Simon Vink, spokesman for the university, said on Thursday.

The plants were part of a legal experiment on the suitability of cannabis fibres for the production of textiles, paper and synthetic materials, he said.

"The project had been underway for years and was in its final phase, which would have allowed us to introduced these new fibres to the market.

"We will probably suffer big losses; we are busy doing the calculations."

He added the university, in the east of the country, was "busy talking to the police" about recovering costs.

Police announced on Wednesday they had discovered about 47,000 cannabis plants with an estimated street value of 4.4 million euros (about 6.3 million dollars).

But, said Vink, the plants were unfit for cannabis production due to an extremely low content of THC, the psycho-active ingredient for soft drug use.

The Netherlands decriminalised the consumption and possession of under five grammes of cannabis in 1976, though cultivation remains illegal.