I am not sure if this is the right place for this - if not could it be re-located to a more suitable heading
Whether it was due to my previous occupation (I am a retired police officer) or I am just unlucky, but on a few occasions now I have found drug stashes when I have been looking for cache. I don't mean some distance away and spotted something unusual, I have actually found them at GZ !
On each occasion the drugs were found in exactly the sort of place that cachers would go looking for hidden containers - in bushes, in a hole near the base of a tree and the last occasion inside the pole of a road name plate (yes! you know that loose plastic cap that is a good indicator that something may be inside !!)
I have taken appropriate action on each occasion and wonder what other cachers have done if they have come across such stashes.
That said I would give the following advice :-
If you do find a stash you can either leave it there and report it to the local police straight away, or pick it up and take it to your nearest police station - the latter probably being more inconvenient to most and so the former being the better option. Give as much information as you can (co-ordinates are good as you have those - but most police officers would need additional location markers such as a description of the area - so they don't end up having a 1 hour search themselves)
At the earliest opportunity advise the CO - this is important, it would be very likely (and advisable) that the CO would want to relocate that cache away from that location or even archive it - there would be nothing worse than an angry drug dealer who has had his stash taken (having been seized by the police) and coming across cachers looking round that same area - he (or she) would not understand that they are looking for a tupperware container in exactly the same place as his very expensive stash and all sorts of outcomes could occur. So it would be best to prevent this occurring. If it turns out the CO is inactive then I would suggest a NA with an explanation to the reviewer as to why.
On each occasion where I have found the drugs the CO has been active and has taken appropriate action
Keep cachers and caching safe
Thank you
Tim - ddm