Date: September 15, 2020 Source: University of Cambridge
Summary: Migrants arrested for tending plants in the flats, houses and attics where cannabis is grown in bulk are often victims of trafficking and ‘debt bondage’ – yet many are not recognized as such by police, according to a new study
While growers — often Vietnamese nationals — are not always imprisoned within farms, many work under threat of extreme violence towards themselves or family back home, with little in the way of language or contacts in the UK.
As such, migrants end up serving years in UK prisons despite being forced to commit the cultivation crimes by gangs who seize passports and threaten — and administer — violence.
“The abuses of freedom in cannabis farm cases do not tally with traditional perceptions of slavery. Victims may be held against their will, forced to work and unable to leave, despite an unlocked door,” said Prof Heather Strang, the study’s senior author.
Dalgarno Institute Comment: What’s egregious about all this, and Dalgarno has been highlighting is grotesque social injustice for years through it’s RIPPED OFF Seminars to schools and communities, is that not only severe environmental harms are done via these illegal grows with shocking misuse of power and water, but that human trafficking and slavery are part of this, and for what? So that carnage creating addiction for profit industries can meet the ‘demand’ of cashed up consumers, who continue to self-indulge or (now hooked) self-medicate their various ‘felt needs’ or perceived ills, and all to an ever diminishing and dysfunctional end.
These new ‘faux freedom rights’ and shameless profiteering not only harm the user, but the ripple effect on their families and communities is also devastating.
Do you know what will put the toxic ‘cherry’ on all this chaos? The pro-drug sector will attempt to harness these atrocities via misapplied drug policy to recommend that making these toxins legal and commercialize them for tax purposes will ‘solve the problem’ of crime and trafficking. That of course is now a completely busted myth, with jurisdictions doing this very thing, seeing their black-markets grow and slavery flourish.
Time to address the real issues. Time to reduce demand and facilitate drug use exiting recovery. #RecoveryMonth