By DAVID SCHOUT
NOBLE PARK has emerged as a cannabis hot spot after police seized another hydroponic crop last week.
The crop was the third significant amount police had uncovered in the past three months in the suburb.
After a fire broke out in a Corrigan Road unit at 2.40am on Monday last week, police came across a hydroponic cannabis crop.
Detective Senior Constable Nick Lamb of Dandenong CIU said the hydroponic equipment “contributed to the fire”.
“The fire has started in one of the units where there was a hydroponic crop.
“It then spread to the other two units which suffered damage from the fire.”
The incident followed another fire on December 3 in a former ‘crop’ house in Buckley Street where police had previously seized more than $1 million worth of cannabis.
Detective Senior Sergeant Martin O’Brien, officer-in-charge of Dandenong CIU, played down any trends that may be occurring in Noble Park. He also said police had not targeted the area. “I wouldn’t say it’s more prevalent there than any other area, but there’s certainly been a number [of crops] pop up of late,” he said. “It’s always up and down depending on the information we receive. We target groups and individuals based on this information provided to us.”
Senior Sergeant O’Brien said it was more common for cannabis growers to work inside rather than in their backyard to avoid detection.
To do this, they operated hydroponic systems where the plants grew in water rather than soil.
This equipment could be dangerous, as proven by the Corrigan Road fire last week.
“Inevitably with the hydro set-up, electricity is being illegally bypassed,” Senior Sergeant O’Brien said. “You have to ask yourself who is setting it up and what qualifications they have. The nature of the set-up means there are a lot of extension leads with significant amounts of heat coming through.”
Senior Sergeant O’Brien said the large crops found in Noble Park did not necessarily mean there were larger amounts of drugs on the street locally. “It can be distributed anywhere.”
He said once crops were seized, they were presented in court where they were examined by a botanist and eventually destroyed.
