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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Drug factory epidemic growing
Simon Hughes Kettering Evening Telegraph
Friday 07 Dec 2007 Northamptonshire: Police find 17 in last nine months. INTERNATIONAL drug rings are targeting Northamptonshire as part of a national cannabis factory epidemic. Two drug factories found in Corby this week bring the total discovered across the county to 17 in the last nine months. In the last three-and-a-half years a total of 58 such factories have been found in Northamptonshire. Many of these have been in the north of the county including in Kettering, Corby, Cottingham, Rothwell and Wellingborough. About £750,000 worth of items and plants have been seized from cannabis factories in and around Corby in the last six months alone. The figures have been revealed by the police after they found two abandoned factories in Corby. Officers believe the cannabis production plants found in Jay Close on the Oakley Vale estate may have been abandoned after raids last month. Detective Inspector Neil McMahon, of Northamptonshire Police, said the rise in cannabis factory finds was largely due to activity by international drug rings, as well as local criminals. He said: "It's not a local problem, its a national problem. "Houses are being rented and used short-term just to become cannabis factories. "We have a very organised group of people who are treating the country as an opportunity to use properties as drug factories. "It has got an international theme to it. "The second ones are factories being set up by local criminal gangs." In June thousands of cannabis plants were uncovered at five addresses in Cottingham, Rothwell and Kettering. Last month police found two separate factories in Oakley Vale and the Lloyds estate in Corby. Police have spent the last few days dismantling and destroying the equipment, plant roots and electrics left at the property in Jay Close in the town. Det Insp McMahon said: "On discovery it was established that the former occupants had vacated some time ago, but much of the hydroponics were still in situ. "It seems likely the offenders fled the area due to previous police activity. "The other day we disposed of a lot of the materials we have seized in the last six months just in Corby and the surrounding area, and it was estimated to be worth £750,000." In the 12 months up to August this year police found 12 cannabis factories, compared to just one in the previous 12 months. http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/Drug-factory-epidemic-hits-town.3565488.jp
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