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.