T

he National Narcotics Agency (BNN) has stepped up its campaign to encourage marijuana farmers to give up their work and start growing more sustainable crops.

BNN said that it would continue to expand its campaign to other places in the country.

'€œWe started the program in Aceh in 2015 and will continue by taking the program to other areas in Indonesia,'€ BNN spokesperson Slamet Pribadi told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Pribadi said that the campaign in Aceh had begun to show success as farmers had started to grow regular crops and plants.

BNN data shows that, in Aceh, at least 60 hectares of marijuana plantation had now been transformed into plots where farmers could grow cacao, patchouli, soybeans and turmeric.

'€œWe also facilitate training for the farmers on how to plant these types of plants so they do not return to growing cannabis,'€ Pribadi said.

Throughout 2015, BNN held training on how to plant cacao for 150 marijuana farmers in the Aceh Besar and Aceh Jaya regions, according to BNN chief Comr. Gen Budi Waseso.

'€œWithin one or two years, we expect the cacao plantations to start production and then the farmers will earn money so that they don'€™t have to grow cannabis in the mountains anymore,'€ Budi told reporters.

In 2016, BNN plan to establish a similar project in West Java.

'€œWe have found marijuana plantations in Garut, West Java, for instance. We will take a similar approach to the weed farmers there,'€ Pribadi said, adding that marijuana plantations had also be found in Papua.

Although soil in most places across the country is suitable for growing cannabis, Aceh, he said, remained the country'€™s biggest marijuana producer. BNN investigation, Pribadi added, had found that a high quota of marijuana plantations in Aceh were actually controlled by investors from outside the province.

'€œThey just ask local Acehnese to plant the weed and then, within several months, they return to claim the harvest,'€ Slamet said.

He said that the weed planting business involved a large number of female workers.

BNN plans to focus their attention on investors and will not prosecute marijuana growers, Slamet said.

'€œWe hunt the investors and spare the farmers,'€ he said.

During 2015, BNN destroyed around 64 hectares of marijuana, mostly located in Aceh and Bengkulu.

BNN acknowledged that its data on the size and extent of marijuana plantations was far from complete.

'€œThis is data from BNN, we believe that police must have more comprehensive data than this,'€ Slamet said.

The 2009 drug law stipulates that anyone found guilty of growing at least five stalks of marijuana could be sentenced to death. However, capital punishment had not deterred people from growing or trafficking the illegal plant.

In August last year, BNN arrested one member of a marijuana drug ring carrying 235.379 kilograms of dried marijuana from Aceh.

In the same month, Bogor Police foiled an attempt to smuggle 3.8 tons of marijuana, carrying a black market value of Rp 7.6 billion (US$544,000), from Aceh to Greater Jakarta via Bogor, West Java.

In October, BNN also arrested two suspects in Jakarta for selling cookies and chocolate made with marijuana via the website www.tokohemp.com. During the raid, the agency found four kilograms of marijuana leaves.

In December, the National Police arrested a truck driver who had been attempting to smuggle 1.5 tons of dried marijuana worth Rp 6 billion.

In 2015, President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo declared the nation to be in the midst of a '€œnarcotics emergency'€ and called for the death penalty for drug dealers; he also rejected clemency pleas from numerous convicted traffickers.
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