I live in the Barcelona area, Spain, just south and over here growing cannabis is actually legal, a sort of grey area but you can grow 3 plants per adult person per property aslon as they cannot be seen from the road or impact your neighbours in any way.
So while I can do that we still have plenty of people over here who still have to break the law and try and make a killing despite of this.
Well last september my friend over here discovered that his house which he rented out to a guy for the last 18 months had in fact been turned into a Marijuana farm, there had been a attempted robbery and the police had been called by a neighbour ,they tuned up and discovered all 3 floors of the house were full of plants around 500 in all.
Every room apart from one bedroom the kitchen and bathroom were being used.
The plants were all there growing in individual pots with spray irrigation, full automatic lighting, watering, heating and cooling, the 3 floors were in various stages of cultivation to allow always a continuous supply of harvested extremely high quality potent Marijuana.
The police estimated that the house was turning over €500,000 per year.
That was a small 3 bedroom house ! in a valley just outside with neighbours either who had no idea what was going on.
The Tenant aka drug lord ,grower and we assume dealer had broken into the water supply before the meter, he employed an electrician who had run a new set of of heavy 100 amp cables from the pole in the road into the house and run in new 3 phase switch boards to every floor, then had large 3 phase air conditioners installed on every floor as well with all the external units just piled up outside in the garden. On top of that there was a full charcoal fume filter ventilation system using large inline fans,ducting and fume filters all over the house. ( ended up with 2 of them for myself for a dust extraction system I am building for my CNC along with the fans and ducting )
The existing house electricity was kept on to keep up a front as with the water supply.
The tenant wasn't there when the police broke in and discovered all of this but handed himself in to them3days later. Hes now awaiting trial but out on bail.
The police removed all the plants and some of the equipment I had to go in late at night and do a video of the damage for my friend which hopefully I can post below, language is colourful at times.
After a few days in custody the tenant left and then tried to come back and take possession of the house again but we had boarded it up, he then had the cheek to get his lawyer involved who threatened my friend under the lease if he wasnt allowed back in.
My friend refused with Foxtrot Oscar and said sue me, well thats whats happening now. Can you believe this ????
This is what it is like over here the tenants have so many rights over here without fear of getting kicked out.
The repairs to the house were around 25k , the insurers paid just 6k, he managed to keep the tenants deposit and the rest was obtained by selling off all the marijuana growing paraphernalia, pots, grow medium, gallons of food and chemicals, watering systems, heating electronics, computer kits that go with that, aircon units, electrical cabling and all the fuse boards etc.etc there was enough stuff to equip another 3 houses at least in the garage the police said.
Since that day we have had another 6 houses in our area raided and shut down,
Drugs are a huge probelm in Spain and most are being grown by eastern europeans who come to Spain and basically take over.
The Police told us that most of the properties that have been used are Airbnb listings rented on a long term rental.
For the record i do not use Marijuana or grow it to sell which is totally illegal here, personal consumption from growing is not.
I grew it once to just see what the fuss was all about, I haven't used any drugs before it was a interesting year in my life that year and as we dont smoke we made Canna butter and used it in cookies, they were good fun and you got very high from it with non of the side effects like you have with alcohol the next day, I only did it for one season and we stopped after that. I stress it is legal here in Spain to do this therefore I have no problem in confirming this. I'm a resident here of 25 years.
The risks of being stopped by the police and tested are quite high and if you are stopped the marijuana is in your body for several days after consumption at high levels and you will be over the limit. It just wasn't worth the risk.
I have also seen far too many people here who consume it regularly and what they turn into after a couple of years of using it. They tend not to be nice people any longer.
The video in the link was shot by me around midnight about 2 hours after the police left.
Aftermath of Police raid on my friends house
This was just some of the young plants in the lower floor, in the garage behind this lot was the drying room which we were not allowed in!
