|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
UK: Northumbria Police reveal scale of cannabis farming Sophie Doughty Chronicle Live Tuesday 01 May 2012 The scale of drug cultivation was revealed in a report by police, who say crime bosses are now choosing to run a large number of small farms in homes – instead of producing plants on an industrial scale. Projected figures in the report say that officers from Northumbria Police dismantled 71 cannabis farms in the financial year 2011/12 – 14 more than in the previous year. Meanwhile, Durham Constabulary discovered a projected 52 over the last 12 months, up 10 since 2010/11. Nationally though, more than 20 cannabis farms and factories were discovered by police every day last year. And officers seized drugs with an estimated street value of £100m. As well as the street value of the drug, around £200m worth of electricity is being stolen every year to run illegal cannabis farms in Britain. Phil Butler, co-director of Newcastle University's Centre for Cybercrime and Computer Security (CCCS), said this would be enough electricity to provide free energy for every household in Newcastle for a whole year. Now the Newcastle team is joining forces with key organisations to investigate ways in which cyber technology could be used to crack down on the commercial cultivation of this class B drug. A former detective inspector with Northumbria Police, Mr Butler said: "What we are trying to do is develop technologies that will enable us to take a more proactive approach in the fight against cannabis cultivation. "The electricity costs associated with even a small-scale farm are astronomical. "To get around this, the individuals responsible find ways of siphoning off the electricity from the main source – often this literally means digging down underground outside the premises and hooking into the main supply." The report, compiled by the Association of Chief Police Officers concluded that the size and scale of the farms were actually reducing. And it says that crime bosses these days are spreading the risk of producing drugs and minimising losses by employing a large number of so-called "gardeners" to manage small sites across multiple residential areas. Over the two years since the last report into cannabis cultivation by ACPO around 1.1 million plants have been seized with a street value of £207.4m. The highest number of farms, 936, were found in the West Yorkshire Police area, this is equivalent to 42 factories per 100,000 people. But South Yorkshire had 64 farms per 100,000 people, the highest ratio in the UK, with 851 farms. In the Northumbria Police area, which covers Tyne and Wear and Northumberland there were just five cannabis farms per 100,000 residents, and County Durham has nine. Detective Chief Insp John Lingwood, of Northumbria Police, said and the force was already having success working with communities to tackle cannabis cultivation. "Tackling drugs and drug-related crime remains a priority for officers and we actively target those who are using their homes for growing large quantities of cannabis," he said. "The large scale cultivation of cannabis is closely linked to other organised criminal activity and we are targeting the people behind these farms as well as the so-called farmers. "In addition to tackling and dismantling the cannabis farms themselves we will continue to do everything in our powers to strip those responsible of their criminal assets using the Proceeds of Crime Act - so that they do not benefit financially from their crimes. "The majority of cannabis farms that we uncover come from information given to us from our communities and we need this to continue. "Anyone who sees anything suspicious where they live should to report it to police, especially instances where people might be coming and going from houses that aren’t lived in." Read More http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/evening-chronicle-news/2012/05/01/northumbria-police-reveal-scale-of-cannabis-farming-72703-30876185/#ixzz1tcxWf2jp
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!