During a recent police operation on Jalan PLN in Duren Tiga, South Jakarta, officers stopped a 19-year-old, identified by the initials IN, and found him in possession of a joint in his pocket as well as a package filled with 2.35 grams of marijuna.
Police then raided IN’s house, where they made a much bigger discovery.
“The suspect lived with his parents, we found six pots containing 116 plants on the second floor of his house inside his room. When questioned, he admitted that he learned how to grow [the marijuana] himself,” Adj South Jakarta Police Narcotics Commissioner Vivick Tjangkung said as quoted by Tribunnews.
Vivick said IN did not have a simple growing operation but that he had produced many plants that were 10-25 cm tall. He said that AN could use the plants to produce half a kilogram of marijuana which would be worth Rp 30 million.
Police say IN’s parents did not know anything about his drug cultivation operation and that they thought they were just regular plants.
“[IN] has been charged with paragraph 111 and paragraph 2 of Law No. 35 of 2009, with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. With this, we also have saved 5,000 people from drugs,” Vivick said.
Although most marijuana circulating in Jakarta comes from Aceh, this is not the first time the Jakarta Police has found somebody growing marijuana in their home. In April, a man was arrested after police found out that he was growing 13 large marijuana plants inside his apartment in West Jakarta.
Despite being decriminalized and even legalized in some other countries, in Indonesia marijuana is considered a narcotic on the same level as heroin and crystal methamphetamine.
Last year, an Indonesian citizen named Zainal Abidin was executed after being caught in 2000 for possession of 47 kg of marijuana. Zainal had initially been given 15 years in jail for the crime but, horrifically, had his sentence changed to the death penalty after he appealed the verdict. He left behind a statement saying his spirit would “not rest easy” and that he would “seek revenge on the wives, children, and the descendants of all of those in the justice system involved in my sentence.”
Reader Interactions