Police in Western Australia have caught criticism after posting pictures on social media that showed a minuscule amount of marijuana, confiscated after a drug dog operation at a bus station.

Drug operation conducted at Morley bus station with assistant from K9 drug dog – drugs taken off the street! #1 #fb pic.twitter.com/kbSYhTVs0h — Morley Police (@MorleyPol) October 29, 2015

“Drugs taken off the street!”, WA police announced on Thursday, next to a picture showing a few, sad baggies of the green stuff.

As the Twitter and Facebook posts were shared, however, they came in for heavy criticism, with many people indignant that WA police allocated an apparently large amount of resources to a small-time bust.

“So this operation must have cost the tax payer more than the dollar value of the substances you seized, that seems an effective deployment of resources,” said one angry Facebook user, Matt.

“Imagine the good PR if you guys went around helping the homeless and building relationships with disadvantaged addicts in our community, rather than wasting time and money on bs operations like this, which only serve to further entrench disadvantage.”

Responses on Twitter ran the gamut from outrage to sarcastic outrage:

@MorleyPol Good use of police resources on this major bust, and to think, they could have almost rolled a WHOLE JOINT with this amount. — Alex Della Croce (@Somerandomchap) October 30, 2015

@MorleyPol What’s next – Busting pensioners without a proper bus fare? Rounding up jaywalkers? Your entire twitter feed is an embarrassment. — Adam (@b1skit) October 30, 2015

@MorleyPol that looks like really, really shitty pot….thank god you saved them from a life of moderate enjoyment and snacking. — Findlay Hilchie (@FindlayH) October 30, 2015

@MorleyPol I literally just signed into twitter for the first time in over a year to ask: Could you please spend my taxes on something else? — Graham (@ChilledRedHead) October 30, 2015





Morley Police have yet to respond to accusations they used resources poorly. We have contacted them for comment, although to be fair, their feed has retweeted a few useful public service announcements:

via Northwest Metropolitan District – WA Police / Reddit