If you’ve visited a Garda Station recently and thought there was a funny smell, rest assured the Gardai are not smoking cannabis on duty.
Garda have laid the blame at inadequate storage facilities. When drugs are seized, they can be stored for a day or two in a secure area of the station before being moved to a central store. While a modern storage system for confiscated goods has started to roll out many small rural stations are still limited to ordinary safes in the main station room.
The smell is extremely pungent and very distinctive.
The problem with the safes is that the smell of the cannabis can escape into the station itself, especially when it starts to rot.
One Garda told The Journal that “The real issue is that many of the secure rooms they’re stored in don’t have proper ventilation so there’s a certain level of drug fumes in the air. It’s the old open window system for a few days until it clears out.”
