Fancy a joint?

Le Perthus is a funny little French town on the border of France and Spain. The main street is bisected by the border line so that half the street is in France and the other half in Spain.
The Spanish half is devoted to the sale of booze, fags and stuff that is much cheaper in Spain. Le Perthus is open 365 days of the year catering for mainly French bargain hunters who swarm down to buy their ciggies and booze in bulk.
The latest draw for the French public is a number of specialised shops : L'Elefant Rosa, Maria Grow Shop and Design: Nova Store .. selling cannabis products.
Relying on the relaxed Spanish regulations, these shops sell everything one needs to set up a cannabis farm .. the LED lights, the cannabis tents, cannabis seeds, special fertilisers, irrigation techniques etc etc and their main clients are Les Francais..
It's difficult to estimate how many "cannabiculteurs" there are in France. In Spain, one is allowed to grow and consume only for own use and not for resale but in France, a drag of a doobie could get you in serious trouble with the law.
Obviously the 30 year old lady from Le Soler didn't think so when she reported the theft of her cannabis plants last year from her garden to the gendarmes. She was detained by the police and insisted the plants were for her own use and that she bought the plants in Le Perthus!! She eventually got off with a warning , much to the amusement of the gendarmes in Le Soler!
All sorts of cannabis products are also for sale even Cannabis lollipops ... just be sure your children don't get their hands on those ones!

The mystery of the Italian boats

5 Italian Boats found in one week

Inexplicably, 5 Italian pleasure boats have been found on the shores of the Languedoc Roussillon in the past week. Ranging from large RIBs to canoes and small sailboats, the police have traced the boats back to Italy where they are all registered.
The boats have been washed up on shore, empty, undamaged and in full working order,  landing in Port La Nouvelle, Gruissan and Barberousse.
The maritime police are baffled and are trying to trace the owners of the pleasure craft, with no luck so far. One explication is that the storms that have lashed the coast of Italy freed up these small boats and they made their way on the currents to the shores near us here.
But many questions remain, how did these "bateaux fantômes" navigate the med without being spotted by another vessel? How is it that the boats are undamaged?
Other theories abound ; drugs and people trafficking have not been ruled out...
A suivre .....