Pubdate: Mon, 25 Sep 2006
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2006 Telegraph Group Limited
Contact:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114
Author: John Steele, Crime Correspondent

POLICE LAUNCH OPERATION TO CLOSE CANNABIS 'FACTORIES'

A nationwide crackdown on cannabis "factories" has been launched by 
police alarmed by figures showing that the high-strength "skunk" 
variety of the drug now accounts for 60 per cent of the UK market.

An operation involving 17 forces in England and Wales will run over 
the next two weeks with the aim of closing hundreds of cannabis 
cultivation units, ranging from vast warehouses on farms to terraced 
suburban houses crammed with plants, and disrupting the crime gangs 
behind them.

The growth of skunk, which has overtaken more "traditional" herbal or 
resin cannabis, has accelerated over the last six years.

Skunk is significantly more profitable, selling at up to UKP120 an 
ounce, compared to up to UKP70 for herbal and up to UKP50 for resin.

British gangsters are heavily involved in "hydroponic" cultivation of 
skunk - growing plants in secluded warehouses using liquid nutrients. 
The largest warehouse raided by police contained 20,000 plants worth 
UKP8 million.

In recent years there has also been an explosion, particularly in 
London, of small-scale factories in residential homes, in which many 
hundreds of plants are grown under intense light powered by 
electricity illegally and dangerously diverted from the mains supply. 
There have been a number of fires. This area is dominated by 
Vietnamese gangsters using illegal "trafficked" workers.

Police identified at least 700 cannabis factories in London alone 
last year and there is clear evidence that the skunk trade is 
expanding across the UK, leading to the operation coordinated by the 
Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

Skunk contains far higher quantities of the chemical THC than herbal 
or resin-based cannabis. In the mid-1990s only around 10 per cent of 
cannabis in the UK was believed to be skunk.

But the percentage in the last 10 years has spiralled to 60 per cent 
of the market, a calculation based on police seizures.

The growing consumption of skunk will fuel the debate over whether 
the decision to downgrade cannabis from a Class B to a Class C 
narcotic in 2004 was appropriate for a new form of the drug which can 
be between four and seven time stronger than traditional "dope" - and 
whether the decision had contributed to the growth of skunk.

Concerns have been raised about the health effects of skunk - 
particularly in those with some types of mental illness - and its 
potential to become more of a "gateway" than herbal/resin cannabis to 
harder drugs.

Gangsters are thought to consider cannabis dealing to be a "lower 
risk" than dealing in hard drugs but police chiefs argue that 
cultivating and trafficking cannabis can still attract sentences of 
up to 14 years.
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