Katerini: arrest over cannabis grown in a home

A man has been arrested in Katerini, accused of cultivating cannabis inside his home, according to what was made known on Sunday 16 August 2026. The case was handled by officers of the Katerini Sub-Directorate for Drug Enforcement and Crime Investigation, who found in his house a specially adapted space where cannabis plants were being grown. Some of the plants had reached a height of up to two metres.

During the search, besides the plants, officers seized two packages of raw cannabis weighing approximately 272.5 and 1.6 grams respectively, as well as three improvised cannabis cigarettes. The man arrested was referred to the Katerini public prosecutor for misdemeanours. It should be noted that, as in every criminal case, the accused is presumed innocent until a competent court rules otherwise. There is a discrepancy between press reports as to the exact number of plants seized, and no official clarification has been given.

Cannabis cultivation indoors in homes, with artificial lighting and a ventilation system, has in recent years been recorded as a frequent finding by drug enforcement services across the country, in contrast to the outdoor plantations that once predominated in mountainous and hard-to-reach areas. The shift is attributed to the greater difficulty of detection from the air and to the ability to control growing conditions, though at the cost of increased electricity consumption, a factor that often leads to such installations being traced.

Criminal treatment differs depending on whether an intent to traffic emerges or use is exclusively personal, a judgement that belongs to the courts and takes into account the quantity, the manner of packaging and the other findings. Pieria is not among the areas with a high concentration of such cases, yet its geographical position on the Athens-Thessaloniki axis makes it a transit point. The incident comes in a week of heightened police activity in Central Macedonia, following the dismantling of a cannabis trafficking ring in Thessaloniki.