Police in the southernmost Vietnamese province of Ca Mau have seized over one tonne of marijuana plants grown on a plot of agricultural land. 

>> Man grows 35 marijuana plants at home

Officers said Sunday that they had discovered 957 marijuana plants to be cultivated on the farming land of Nguyen Minh Canh, 47, in Khanh Thuan Commune, U Minh District.

Police confiscated all the banned plants, which weighed more than 1.1 tonnes in total.  Canh told police officers that he had hired the land from another farmer, Lu Van Hoang, for bean and vegetable cultivation. The district police are conducting further investigations and it is still unclear who grew the illegal plants. Many similar cases have been discovered in different localities in Vietnam in recent years. Police in Le Chan District, located in the northern province of Hai Phong, on March 20, 2014 nabbed Do Hai Nam, 38, after catching him in the act of dealing in drugs and planting marijuana trees at home.

On searching Nam’s house, officers seized 23 potted cannabis plants on the third and fourth floors. Nam confessed that he had harvested the plants once. Another case happened on January 7, 2013 when police in District 9, Ho Chi Minh City, found a 35-year-old man growing marijuana plants at his house to supply his consumption of the substance.

On the terrace of the house, police officers saw 35 marijuana plants, each of which was about 1.5 meters tall.

Huynh Ngoc Son, the house’s owner, admitted that he was addicted to marijuana, and that he had grown the plants seven months earlier.

Under Article 192 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, “those who grow opium poppy, coca shrubs, marijuana or other plants which bear narcotic substance, have already been educated more than once, have already been given conditions to stabilize their lives and have already been administratively sanctioned for such acts but still commit them, shall be sentenced to between six months and three years of imprisonment.” As for those who commit the crime in an organized manner or are repeat offenders, they shall be sentenced to between three and seven years of imprisonment, according to the article. The offenders may also be subject to a fine of between one million and fifty million Vietnamese dong, the same article says.

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