Pubdate: Sun, 09 Oct 2005
Source: Sunday Herald, The (UK)
Copyright: 2005 Sunday Herald
Contact:  http://www.sundayherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/873
Web: http://www.sundayherald.com/52156
Cited: Independent Drug Monitoring Unit  http://www.idmu.co.uk
Cited: Legalise Cannabis Alliance  http://www.lca-uk.org
Cited: HempExpo at Wembley Exhibition http://www.ukhempexpo.com
Cited: Weed World  http://www.weedworld.co.uk
Cited: Don Barnard http://www.ccguide.org.uk/donbarnard.php
Author: Jenifer Johnston

MOST CANNABIS HOME-GROWN BY `FAIR-TRADE' USERS

HOME-GROWN cannabis now accounts for more than half the UK supply of
the drug as ethically-minded users, concerned with supporting
organised crime, shun dealers in favour of growing their own.

Figures from the Independent Drugs Monitoring Unit show more than 66%
of all cannabis consumed in the UK is now home-grown, while imports
from Morocco, India and the Netherlands have plummeted. In Scotland,
8% of the population are believed to regularly smoke cannabis.

Experts believe that users wanting to dissociate themselves from
criminal gangs are driving the home-growing trend, while sales of new
technology such as "cold-light" lamps, which can avoid police
detection, are making some users more confident in growing cannabis
plants at home.

Cannabis users concerned the dealer-bought cannabis resin has been
polluted with plastic, coffee, wax or other drugs, are also looking to
home-growing to produce strong, untainted organic strains.

The home-growing boom is increasingly commercial, with up to 20,000
people expected to visit HempExpo at Wembley Exhibition Centre in
London next month where seeds and growing kits will be on sale.

Hemp Expo organiser Phil Kilvington said the motivation for
home-growers is often a personal "fair-trade" ethos. "Home-growing is
a multi-billion pound industry in the UK -- 10 years ago 90% of
cannabis smoked in this country was coming from overseas, now it is
more like 30%.

"There is a 100% link between imported cannabis and criminal networks,
many of whom are involved in other types of crime such as
prostitution, trafficking, or class A drugs. Home-growers do not want
to be associated with that."

Kilvington, editor of Weed World magazine, said police using thermal
cameras on helicopters to detect heat lamps in growers lofts or garden
sheds are being thwarted by new techniques -- "they are probably
finding less than 10% of home-grown cannabis," he said.

Cannabis seeds can be legally bought in the UK, but cultivating them
can lead to 14 years in prison. Since cannabis was downgraded to a
class C drug in 2003, there have been calls for it to be reclassified
again as more recent research points to links between the drug and
mental illness.

As cannabis cultivated at home is purer and more potent than street
hashish these concerns have become more pressing. Professor Neil
McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at the
University of Glasgow, said he was not surprised at the trend. "It is
almost the equivalent of home-brewing beer -- home-growers are almost
invisible. If you can grow cannabis at home, why go out and engage
with a dealer or supplier?"

McKeganey called for a "debate" on the changing culture of cannabis as
the drug being grown privately rather than imported. He believes the
health risks of high-strength cannabis are a serious concern. "There
is a possibility that consumption of often very high-strength cannabis
will increase considerably [because of home-growing]. At the moment, a
quarter of teenagers consume cannabis -- would that go up if growing
at home is seen as normal and increases further?

"The high strength strains being cultivated can give the same
hallucinogenic effects as LSD, and may result in an increase in mental
illness and diseases such as throat cancer."

Chief superintendent Stephen Ward of the Scottish Drug Enforcement
Agency rejected the suggestion that growing innovations have outrun
detection. He said: "What we do is intelligence led -- we are aware of
the technique changes that growers are using."

Don Barnard of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance said it was time for "a
grown-up response ... perhaps someone from the government should pop
down to the HempExpo and have a look at what kind of tax revenue they
could be making from it." 
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