The Guardia Civil may have invaded a garden with Operation Gardens. Because the owner of what is said to be “the largest marijuana cache discovered to date”, Francisco Gómez Carbo, claims that the hemp plants taken from his companies are morphologically identical to those of marijuana, but are not drugs because they do not have space for much smoked: They lack psychoactive ingredients because they are intended for the legal production of cannabidiol (CBD), a product popular for its balsamic, cosmetic and anti-inflammatory effects, extracted from and regulated by the Cannabis sativa L plant EU and subsidized by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In fact, the company E-Canna Farming SL, of which Gómez is the sole administrator, is showing itself physically and virtually as a leader in the processing of industrial hemp plants, thanks to the crops it buys from 40 registered Spanish farmers. From its office in Quatretonda (Valencia), it sells tons of buds all over the world for 50,000 euros each. But if the plant is the same, how are they different? Because of the smell, the papers and their effect. The confusion is at the core.
The operation allegedly led to the seizure of “32,370 kilograms of marijuana buds, the largest seizure of this substance, not only in Spain but internationally,” said the Guardia Civil on the 5th. It all started in a plantation in Villacañas (Toledo). , owned by Jesús Fernández, who has a foundation of the same name in which he supports and promotes the cultivation of industrial hemp, for which he ensures that he has “all the permits and authorizations from the Ministry of Agriculture”. The problem lies in the flower, in the bud: if the plant flowers and has a bud, for the Guardia Civil it is a drug. Indeed, as the detainees admit, the aerosol available to the armed institute to check if the plant marijuana or hemp has tested positive because they contain a minimum of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). , the active ingredient that acts as a conventional drug.
The cultivation of this plant to obtain CBD is regulated by Royal Decree 1729/1999 on aid for the cultivation of hemp (known as the vegetable pig because everything is used), which authorizes 25 varieties of industrial hemp and establishes a list of obligations. The basic thing to get a subsidy is that the plant has to be below 0.2% THC, but it can really exceed that amount if it complies with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime protocols (specifically the Test St-Nar-40 , which provides a formula for calculating psychoactivity: if the result is less than 1, it is hemp and not marijuana). From here comes medicinal oils, fibers for nests, fabrics, paper… These are derivatives that are already available in many supermarkets and pharmacies.
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The company that was the axis of everything was back to full capacity this Thursday, with Francisco Gómez at the helm of the company, after being indicted by the head of the Investigatory Court 1 of Almagro (Ciudad Real). “They didn’t take anything from my three processing camps, they just sealed them with everything inside; but I already have another 30 tons of plants,” he admits. The businessman, who has been engaged in this activity for two years after four years of field work, is surprised by the actions of the Toledo agents in their offices in Cuatretonda (Valencia), where Soraya Calvo, administrator, is still outraged by the registration. for being arrested. “But if the guards here know everything we’re doing, then why are we telling them,” he says. “Those who were impressed are some refugees from Ukraine who we let work here.”
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The company owner assures that he has excellent relations with the Roca Group (against rural crime) of the Xàtiva Civil Guard, which he says is aware of his activities and visits him “day in, day out” in his offices. “Every time a shipment comes in or goes out, I let them know,” he says. “I’m calm because everything is legal, I communicate everything, and I have Treasury Department approval to sell cannabis flower for ornamental use,” he adds. It also has the so-called TARIC number, which is also assigned by the Ministry of Finance in order to be able to export. “We sell a lot abroad, mainly to laboratories,” says Gómez.
The businessman suspects that the growers and processors of legal hemp are threatening the business of the pharmaceutical industry, which previously had a monopoly on the cultivation of products with potentially psychoactive ingredients. The business doesn’t stop growing. According to Darío Gutiérrez de Tena, an external consultant at the law firm José Antonio Sánchez Conejo, more than 200 farmers are already registered in the General Register of Agricultural Holdings (Regepa). Gómez assures that there are already 2,500 CBD points of sale in Spain, a business that already moves 12.5 million euros a year. Gómez estimates that 10,000 families in Spain already make a living from the cultivation, processing and sale of CBD.
The businessman has announced he will sue the 14 Civil Guards who took part in the operation for evasion because he believes they acted in the knowledge that there was no drug there but CBD. Armed Institute sources showed their calm this Thursday due to the evolution of the operation and its results. Gómez and Gutiérrez de Tena believe, in addition to their suspicion of the market’s monopolistic enterprise, that the guards “continue to be guided by the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which states that if a hemp plant has a flower, a bud, what Anyone who smokes is immediately marijuana and therefore a drug,” says Gutiérrez de Tena.
Gómez is certain that one plant and the other can be distinguished by a league: “If it has THC, it smells like weed for miles, but what I grow smells little and alfalfa.” His buds, he says, are so intoxicating like eating a potato, an artichoke or an aloe vera.
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