"Our Children Got Sick. We Are Constantly Going to The Hospital", Turkish Police Decided To Burn 20 TONS Of Confiscated Weed In The Town Square, Entire Town Gets High
News 18 – Police, in their earnest efforts to rid the streets of marijuana, confiscated a whopping 20 tonnes of it. That’s around 20,000 kilograms of cannabis, seized during 2023–2024. Rather than quietly disposing of it far from the population, the officers chose a bold, if not bafflingly ill-planned, route: they lit it all on fire in the middle of town, leading to five days of drifting smoke, stoned citizens, and total chaos.
I don't know much about the country of Turkey outside of what I see in the occasional viral headline. But based only on the viral headlines, it's a hell of a place. Turkey needs to get their shit together. They're politicians are constantly getting into government wide fist fights mid-parliament session..
Turkish soccer is an even bigger shit show. Just a quick run through of soccer related incidents over the past 5 years or so, I see a team president who ran onto the field and punched a ref in the mouth.
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A separate incident of fans storming the field to fight the opposing team following a loss.
They once had a star player from one of their Turkish professional club teams bring a razor blade to pre-game handshakes and began slicing his opponents.
And Turkey soccer star Emre Asik once had his wife (now ex-wife) take out a $1.3M hit on him after he filed for divorce.
Beyond that, the only notable person of Turkish descent I can think of is the scary looking air pistol shooter who got briefly famous during the Olympics for competing with no headgear. Come to think of it, the name of Emre Asik's hitman wasn't revealed in that article. I'm not even sure they figured out exactly who his wife was trying to pay. $1.3M seems a pretty steep for a Turkish hitman. Makes me think she probably splurged for the best. I don't want make any wild accusations, but…
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Aside from that, the only remaining things I know about Turkey are that they do good cheap hair transplants, and the ice cream vendors have horrific customer service.
It actually looks like a pretty fun time. I might need to take a trip there myself someday. Especially if there's the added bonus of catching a 5-day long, government funded high. What a generous and thoughtful move by the police department of Lice. When you confiscate 20 tons of weed over the span of two years (which seems like a crazy high amount to me but maybe that's normal), it would be wasteful to burn it all in an a remote area. They even tried to have a little fun with it by laying out their 20 tons of confiscated weed to spell the name of the town. Made for a pretty cool picture.
Personally I would have tried to find a way to sell it. That much weed is reportedly worth $261M. Those estimates are always vastly inflated, but even a fraction of that price is nothing to sneeze at. Weed is legal in so many parts of the world. I gotta think they could have found somebody to unload it on.
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EsstN – The destroyed cannabis, valued at 10 billion Turkish Lira ($261,433,808), weighed 20 tons 766 kilos 679 grams and had been seized from all over Diyarbakır province during 2023 and 2024.
Unfortunately, whatever the government was attempting to do with this "burn all the weed in the town square" maneuver, whether it was bless their citizens with a nice buzz, or send a message that dangerous life-ruining drugs like marijuana will not be tolerated, I'm afraid the plan backfired.
News 18 – With an estimated population of 25,000, the town of Lice quickly found itself engulfed in a pungent fog that was impossible to avoid. Locals reportedly shut their windows, barricaded their doors, and limited time outdoors, all in a desperate attempt to avoid unintentional intoxication. For many, however, it was too late.
Residents described symptoms ranging from dizziness and nausea to a mysterious floating feeling. Several people were even taken to hospital after feeling unwell.
EsstN – “The smell of drugs has been enveloping the district for days,” a local man complained. “We cannot open our windows. Our children got sick, we are constantly going to the hospital.”
Doesn't sound like it was an enjoyable high. Figure it out Turkey. How could nobody have stepped up to point out that burning 20 tons of any plant, even plants that don't make you high, is going to go horribly. Thank god they tried this with weed first before fentanyl made its way to Turkey. They could have wiped out half the population.