Cops Get Residents High, Including Children, by Burning 20 Tons of Weed: 'We Are Constantly Going to the Hospital'

Authorities in Lice, Turkey, inadvertently got the town's 25,000 residents, including children, high after burning 20 tons of confiscated marijuana near the town center.

The bags of cannabis were seized in drug operations conducted between 2023 and 2024. Before setting the massive piles ablaze on April 18, officers reportedly arranged the bags to spell out "Lice," which one resident said "added insult to injury," Esst News reported.

For the next five days, the town was covered in a haze of marijuana smoke, forcing residents to keep their windows and doors closed while they stayed inside.

"The smell of drugs has been enveloping the district for days," a local man told Esst News. "We cannot open our windows. Our children got sick, we are constantly going to the hospital."

Yahya Öğer, chairman of the Yeşil Yıldız Association, an NGO in Turkey, chastised the town's police force for causing "serious discomfort to people due to the smoke of burned hemp."

"As you know, the destruction or burning of such herbs can also cause serious intoxication," Öğer explained. "Just as tobacco harms passive smokers when used in a closed area, the smoke released by such narcotic substances when disposed of can cause serious discomfort to people on the other side. It can make people drunk, dizzy, nauseated, and cause hallucinations."

He called for the police force to burn the confiscated narcotics in a factory with filtered chimneys in the future.