EPISODE 83: RIPPED

Welcome to my blog which this week wants to begin by telling someone else’s story without getting them into more trouble than they already are. I guess this is a dilemma that journalists can find themselves in when they are handed illegal information; how do they tell their story without incriminating their source? Of course you can change a name or two and then maybe disguise a few details but if you go too far with the deceptions, do you end up with a story that is no longer true?

Job, I shall call him that, has had a bad few days. As he spoke to me, I couldn’t help but notice how much he has changed in the last week with new lines on his face and a dazed expression in his eyes.

Job is a marijuana grower. He says he’s been doing it on and off for twenty years. Left to nature, marijuana grows well with loads of sun, a bit of rough ground and the occasional watering. Grown indoors as an illegal cash crop, however, it is deprived of nature and becomes dependent on a strict routine of lighting and feeding. Once the grower has mastered the techniques and environment, the growing should become easier but there is always plenty that can go wrong through human error, technological mishaps, the arrival of mites and sheer bad luck. Bear in mind too that the growers themselves are not trained horticulturists working in a bespoke environments but risk-takers who are trying to avoid people smelling what they do from the road or sending out heat-seeking helicopters to find out what is happening in lofts around the country.

These days there are at least two sorts of growers; those that are still wedded to the dope smoking ethos and those purely in it for the money. The latter can be kids with a minor criminal bent or organized gangs, mainly Vietnamese, who are out and out villains and have no actual interest in the quality of the product beyond its capacity to become cash.

About two years ago, Job decided that as he was taking the risk anyway he might as well grow more, build-up some capital and then get out of the business. He and two friends, Andy and John, then decided to work together for although growing isn’t heavily labour intensive, it does require daily care because any time you go away for 48 hours or more, you take the chance that something drastic may happen in your absence.

I don’t know how much the three of them actually grew or how much money they were making. I do know that not everything went smoothly because it rarely does. His new mates were inexperienced growers and as a result many of the crops were not as bountiful as they should have been. A couple of times they got spider mite and had to clean out the rooms and start again. Maybe they were growing 15 kilos a year, worth about £90,000. Between three people that’s a good amount (the costs are minimal over a period of time) but not amazing. For Job is was virtually a full-time job because he organized the selling, dealt with all the growing problems and had to manage his friends into professionalism. He told me that initially his friends saw the money as a bonus but as time went by they became more used to having disposable income and more desirous of the goods they could buy. An annual holiday in India and a decent car became their expectation and they constantly hassled Job to sell the weed for more money.

So it goes.

Three people growing weed in three houses. Teamwork.

Last Monday, John went to Gambia for a fortnight’s break, leaving behind him a kilo of drying weed and a growing crop. Before he went, he dropped off the key with Job who would be tending the plants and doing all the hard work of trimming, manicuring, curing and selling. That evening, Job went over to the house. The weed had all gone; nothing was drying, nothing growing; the lights were on but the plants weren’t at home. Totally ripped. Strangely, there was no sign of someone having broken in, no damage, no mess, just the absence of greenery.

The phone call to Gambia must have been a tricky one. John offered to come back but there didn’t seem any point. Of course they racked their brains trying to identify the culprits and in the end it seems that the most likely candidate is John’s landlord who has a key and a beef with John over some past debt. They can’t be certain and therefore can’t do anything about it.

Job’s other partner, Andy, lives on an adjacent street to him. On Wednesday evening he rang Job to say that two black guys he didn’t know had been banging on the door and asking for Jason. He’d leaned out of the window and sent them away but he was worried that they may come back. Five hours later, at 11pm, they did so.

One guy stood by the front gate and faced the road. The other got out a hammer and a screwdriver and began to splinter the door while Andy leaned out of the window and begged them to stop. The sound of hammering was loud enough to draw a few neighbours out on to the road but the calm menacing figure of the guy by the gate prevented anyone from doing anything. Andy phoned Job who went rushing over to the house where he found a group of people on the street watching the fracas and listening to Andy who was by then screaming for help. Job felt helpless because he knew he couldn’t touch these guys. Fifteen minutes must have gone by before sirens were heard. The two guys shrugged and walked casually away. Immediately Job went running to the house but Andy wouldn’t let him in because he was terrified of the guys coming back. Instead Job phoned him and told him to run because the police would be there in no time. Andy grabbed a bag and some money but when he opened the back door to make is escape he found the police coming in. Job meanwhile ran back to his house to work out what to do.

How did the yardies know about Andy’s house? Had someone said something? Or maybe one of them had been followed from the growshop. Or was it chance because the smell of skunk had lingered in the street too long? Did the yardies know about Job’s house? Would he be next? When?

And what to do about the police?

After an hour, Job went for a walk. He saw Andy’s house with the door off its hinges and two police cars parked directly outside. Some police were doing house to house calls and chatting to neighbours. Because he would be known to Andy’s neighbours, Job feared that they would connect him to the growing. Maybe the police would be coming for him. In is house he had a kilo of drying weed, thirty mature about to be cropped plants and a hundred babies (seedlings.) The kilo of weed he hid in the eaves of the house, the rest he flushed down the toilet.

And then he waited.

At 4 in the morning, he went for another walk. On the junction of his road and Andy’s road were two police cars parked in a position where they could watch both houses if they wanted. Job’s next door neighbour was standing by one of the police cars and offering the policemen cups of tea. Unable to risk moving anything out of his house, Job returned to his waiting.

Six hours later, he ventured forth once more. This time he saw a host of police vans, some of them clearly marked ‘Cannabis Removal’ (or something like that), and a bunch of police removing all the equipment and technical paraphernalia they had so painstakingly and lovingly installed. The question was, were they on their way to Job’s?

So far, it seems not but it could be any time any day. The police have threatened Andy with four to six years in prison. He is terrified. Down the chain, people are deprived of their harmless drug and a possible income. It is madness on so many levels.

But what isn’t?