Pubdate: Fri, 12 Apr 2013
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Amelia Gentleman

GREEN GREEN GRASS OF HOME: POLICE CRACK DOWN ON COTTAGE INDUSTRY OF CANNABIS

Raids Target Rising Domestic Cultivation of Drug, Fuelled by Debt and 
Criminality

If making big money from cannabis cultivation was the aim, there is 
no evidence of success in this small, rented, two-storey terrace 
home, raided by Manchester police.

Downstairs, the middle-aged male tenant had just sat down in a bare 
sitting room, in front of afternoon television, to enjoy a piece of 
buttered white toast and a porn magazine when the police arrived. Of 
the three rooms upstairs, only the bedroom is furnished, but sparsely 
a bed, a dirty duvet, no sheets on the mattress, and a ratty pair of 
slippers half-tucked under the bed. "He's not living in affluence," a 
police officer remarks, glancing in.

The other two rooms have been stripped down to bare floorboards; one 
contains six black plastic bin bags, which on inspection contain old 
plant pots and the moulding stumps of cannabis plants. The back 
bedroom is filled with an enormous black tent, almost ceiling height, 
which unzips to reveal a silver reflective lining, high intensity 
strip lights, fans, extractor flues and a sophisticated odour 
filtration system. Outside the tent, blue curtains have been taped to 
the window with black masking tape so no light seeps through.

There are no live plants and the tenant, a tired-looking, pale man 
with stubble, questioned at his kitchen table by the police, wearily 
admits that he grew one crop "to pay off a debt", but is not 
currently cultivating new plants.

Across the UK, 7,865 cannabis farms were discovered in 2011-12, an 
increase of 15% on the previous year's figures and over double the 
number for 2007-8 when police found just 3,032. Previously in 
Manchester, cannabis cultivation was done on a larger scale by gangs, 
sometimes from China and Vietnam, who would fully convert terrace 
houses, knocking down walls to make larger growing areas, taking 
electricity direct from the mains, to avoid triggering the suspicion 
of the energy companies over unusually high consumption.

Recently, there has been a shift towards smaller-scale farms, in line 
with a national trend, identified by the Association of Chief Police 
Officers' 2012 report into the commercial cultivation of cannabis, 
which noted a "diversion into multi-occupancy premises to reduce 
risk". It said: "There is an emergence of the 'multiple site model' 
whereby a large number of gardeners are employed to manage 
small-scale factories across multiple residential areas".

Fire services have reported rising numbers of cannabis farm-related 
house fires, triggered by the re-routing of electricity supplies. The 
Acpo report noted an increase in robberies, burglaries and violence 
(including the use of firearms) linked to cannabis farms and 
highlighted the use of "debt bondage"  where individuals are forced 
to grow the drug, to pay off loans.

Crimestoppers recently sent out scratch-and-sniff stickers to help 
people identify the distinctive smell of cannabis and encourage them 
to alert the police. Forces in 12 areas of the country with a high 
incidence of cannabis farms have this month stepped up the number of 
raids  sometimes tipped off by members of the public who have noticed 
the strong smell from neighbouring houses.

Finishing off at the Manchester raid, the police officers shred the 
tent with knives to make it unusable, and stamp on and break tent 
poles. They remove the lights and electrical equipment to a van 
parked outside the house at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, watched by 
neighbours, and about a dozen local children who came running to see 
police in body armour file into the building.

Ten minutes' drive away another Manchester force has just raided a 
printing studio, where in addition to producing signs and business 
cards, workers appear to have had a sideline growing cannabis plants. 
The smell as you walk up metal steps to the office is a curiously 
thick mix of ink and cannabis.

The first room in the workshop is given over to layout surfaces and 
plan chests, but a large side room has been emptied of anything to do 
with the core business and converted into a well-nurtured cannabis 
farm, where 50 plants have reached around a metre tall, and look 
ready for harvesting. Lights have been strung up from the ceiling and 
attached to a Plug & Grow timer socket, so that for 12 hours they 
shine brightly on the plants, and for 12 hours there is darkness.

The investigating officer shines a torch into the blackness, casting 
ferny shadows of cannabis plants on to the ceiling. He thinks they 
might be 12 weeks old and estimates that the street value from the 
room's contents would be in the region of UKP35,000. A sign marked 
"strictly staff only" is stuck to the main entrance, and the 
plantation room was secured with a bicycle lock.

In the neighbouring building, an architectural supplies business, two 
vast black-and-silver tents have been erected beneath the rafters in 
the loft, and supplies for a second plantation have been delivered 
silver hydroponics lights, aluminium flexi-duct, odour filters, and 
black plastic plant pots. One of the tents is about the size of a 
high-street changing room and has just one plant inside, with a small 
desk fan directing cool air at its leaves. The other is double the 
size, and still empty.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael Mangan, head of crime operations at 
Oldham police station, examines the tents with interest. "This is the 
new style," he says. "You could just put it up in your bedroom. It is 
. find a room, put some sheeting down, put some lights up and grow 
the plants. I do actually think I could do it myself." Six people 
were arrested when police raided the two workshops.

In the past year, Manchester police have discovered about one 
cannabis farm a day, even without a dedicated campaign to hunt for 
them. Halfway down the stairs to the evidence storeroom in the 
basement of Oldham police station the smell of cannabis plants hits 
you, a heavy tropical smell reminiscent of cut grass and rotting 
nettles. An aisle of shelves in the corner is full from floor to 
ceiling with dozens of large brown paper bags, filled with rotting 
cannabis plants. Fresher bags of wilting plants have been piled onto 
stolen bicycles in the corridor. The smell is overpowering, but staff 
no longer notice it. The bags are due to be taken for incineration in 
the next few days.

"I think people have realised that growing cannabis is profitable, 
with little perceived risk, and not very difficult to do. There is a 
market there to be exploited," Mangan says. "We think it is mostly 
done by local criminal gangs who have recognised that this is a 
commodity that will make money for them."

A mile from the terrace house raided by police on Thursday, staff at 
the newly opened hydroponics shop  which specialises in water-based 
plant cultivation  say their products are not designed for cannabis 
cultivation.

Their stock, displayed on shelves in an unwelcoming dark basement in 
a business park unit by the motorway, is identical to the equipment 
in the raided buildings, and many of the products have very knowing 
names that hint at their purpose without spelling it out. Canna Start 
costs UKP9 and the shop assistant explains that it is a good product 
to encourage young shoots  perhaps, he says, young tomato plants.

The shop also sells unconventional gardening items - such as head 
torches to wear when you water plants in the dark so you don't tread 
on them. Many of the products are designed to stimulate big buds, 
which is the most saleable part of a cannabis plant. The shop 
assistant explains that this might be useful for growing tulips 
"bigger buds would mean bigger flowers". But he is unable to explain 
why people might want to be growing tulips or indeed tomatoes inside 
the house or in the dark, or in tents that are on sale for UKP400 a 
shot, lit with specialist lamps that cost up to UKP350 each, or why 
they would spend money on expensive odour filtration systems.

The hydroponics magazines on display have women in bikinis 
advertising fertilisers, tents and plugs, and plant nutrients are 
promoted with pictures of skulls on sticks. There is no mention of 
cannabis, but curiously for a gardening magazine there are articles 
advising readers what they should do if they are arrested. Mangan 
notes that there are more hydroponic shops springing up, but points 
out there is nothing illegal about them, and in any case any attempt 
to control them would simply divert the business online.

Police visit another terrace house, ring the bell, but since the 
owner is out they decide to batter down his front door. Neighbours 
pop out to say that he is probably at work. Half a dozen police 
officers make their way into the house, which although it smells 
strongly of cannabis, turns out to contain only four plants, growing 
in the boiler cupboard.

Andy Bliss, Acpo's lead officer for drugs, conceded that tipoffs are 
not always accurate. "Intelligence can be mercurial," he said. But he 
stressed the raids were important. "These farms are a magnet for 
criminality, and are associated with significant violence right up to 
firearms involvement."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom