Cannabis factories set up in empty city centre buildings
Nicholas Thomas LDRS Reporter
Nine cannabis factories in a south Wales city have been raided by police in the last two months alone.
Superintendent Jason White told councillors on Tuesday November 28 that Newport city centre’s disused buildings are an enticing prospect for criminals looking to set up cannabis factories.
Prison terms
Organised crime groups are even resorting to digging up streets to hack into the power grid and steal electricity to run their growing operations, according to officers from Gwent Police.
Authorities have been “caught cold” by the scale of the drug growing operations and expected to find more in the area, he added.
Cannabis is a Class-B controlled drug and anyone convicted of its supply can face up to 14 years in prison.
The more than 9,000 cannabis plants Gwent Police discovered and seized in recent city centre raids has a street value of “several million pounds”.
Tip of the iceberg
Disruption to the power grid, caused by the theft of electricity, was expected to cost another £1 million, Superintendent White told councillors at the meeting.
He encouraged councillors and business owners in the city centre to be “professionally curious” and to “scrutinise and challenge” people whose behaviour could be linked to illegal cannabis factories.
The police are now working with the council’s new city centre manager to investigate the “management of unused buildings” in Newport which could be targeted by drugs gangs. These properties are where such criminals “ply their trade”, he added.
In recent years, researchers have named Newport as the British town or city with the highest proportion of empty shops – but the council has previously disputed this claim.
Pillgwenlly ward Labour councillor Saeed Adan said the scale of cannabis cultivation in the city was on an “unprecedented” scale and was happening in the “heart” of Newport.
Superintendent White said he believed Gwent Police had “just discovered the tip of the iceberg” and said the force’s investigations of buildings in the city centre would make sure “the activity that’s going on in those premises is lawful and legal”.
In the meantime, he urged residents to come forward and report any illegal or suspicious activity.
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One day, Cymru will join the enlightened world (Colorado, Spain etc) and decriminalise marijuana and eventually legalise, regulate and tax all drugs. There is a huge demand for drugs, including alcohol, in our society and eventually we will choose to meet it safely while protecting children – which we cannot now do. We will have sane drug policies (sales in Colorado are contributing $200m annually to their education system), skilled and licensed growers (farmers adding an income stream), a research institute focused on producing new painkilling and other drugs, … We will stop harassing users, prevent access by children and… Read more »
Hear hear!
Completely agree with you, but there’s no chance of it with the (lack of) democracy we have at a uk level.
I think Scotland will be the first country of these isles to legalise marijuana when it achieves independence.
Until fools realise they can’t do it and drive and smoking it gives cancer, long way off. Though why anyone would want to smell of week old rotten rabbit bedding, is beyond me. Cook it I support. Anything else seems usual delusion of a smoker.