The London Daily News

22 February, 2012 07:48 (GMT +01:00)

Cannabis factory raided in east London with 1,000 plants

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Cannabis factory raided in east London with 1,000 plants

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Crime Desk

The Metropolitan Police raided a warehouse in east London where 1,000 cannabis plants were found growing drugs on an "industrial scale" for London based cannabis users.

Officers from the Met's Central Task Force (SCD7), supported by Lea Bridge Ward Safer Neighbourhoods team from Waltham Forest, arrested two men after a cannabis factory with approximately 1000 plants was discovered.

The officers forced entry to the premises, located on an industrial estate in Argall Avenue, Leyton, late on Tuesday evening (21 February). Once inside, a total of four 'growing rooms' were discovered, each containing approximately 250 plants.

Two men, [A] aged 25 and [B] aged 32, were discovered inside the premises and both were arrested on suspicion of growing the plants. They will also be questioned over potential immigration offences. Both remain in custody at an east London police station.

Detective Inspector Colin Stephenson of the Central Task Force, said: "We will continue to target those who wish to supply drugs to the streets of London and this seizure of 1000 plants reinforces this message.

"These drugs could have netted the people concerned a vast amount of money, but with the support of our colleagues, they have been thwarted."

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Peter Reynolds

Date Added: Wednesday 22 February, 2012

Why don't we try taking a completely new approach to cannabis? Around three million people in Britain are regular users and whatever we do we're not going to be able to stop them. We waste billions every year on police, court and prison resources when a large proportion of society uses cannabis without any problem at all. In fact, the only real problem with cannabis is that it's illegal. The risks to health are very small - much, much less than alcohol or tobacco. By a recent analysis of mortality, hospital admissions, toxicity and propensity to psychosis, cannabis is nearly 3000 times safer than alcohol. Why not introduce a tax and regulate system and realise the benefits? That way we'd have a properly regulated supply chain with no criminals involved, no theft of electricity, no human trafficking, no destruction of property and disruption of neighbourhoods. Then there would be some control over this huge market. There would be thousands of new jobs, sales would be from licensed outlets to adults only with guaranteed quality and safety. Then our police could start going after some real wrongdoing instead of trying to fight a crime that exists only because of a misguided government policy. Also, very importantly, science now proves that cannabis is one of the safest and most effective medicines for a wide range of conditions. While the government promotes the lie that "there is no medicinal value in cannabis", it has granted an unlawful monopoly to GW Pharmaceuticals to grow 20 tonnes a year for, you guessed it, medicine! Cannabis Law Reform (CLEAR) published independent research on 14th September 2011 that shows a cannabis tax and regulate regime would provide a net gain to the UK exchequer of £6.7 billion per annum as well as reducing all health and social harms. The only thing that keeps the present absurd status quo in place is weak politicians corrupted by Big Booze and the GW Pharma monopoly. Go to the CLEAR website for full details: www.clear-uk.org

Dan Ford

Date Added: Wednesday 22 February, 2012

Of course the only effect this will have on the supply chain in London will be to keep the price sky-high. There will be two more indoor farms who hear of this and simply respond by planting extra. How much better it would be if there were a legal supply chain, with proper safeguards in place, consenting adults would be able to consume whatever herbs they chose and the supply to children would be cut off, for it is in the area of age restrictions that prohibition has failed our youth so badly. Under the current uncontrolled free-for-all cannabis is supplied to anyone who has enough money, whereas in countries with a more humane approach the licensed sellers know they would be out of business with their licence withdrawn if they sold to minors. How much better it would be if operations like this were above board, they would not be engaged in human trafficking to bring in their "staff" and they would be giving a great boost to the economy instead of the huge drain created by the redundant and failed policy of prohibition. And last, a grammatical point, but a very important one.. Detective Inspector Colin Stephenson of the Central Task Force is quoted as saying "These drugs could have...." well, of course a quantity of cannabis should be referred to as "This Cannabis" or even, to stretch a point, "This drug" (singular) . To use the phrase "These drugs" (plural) is to cloud the issue. It is akin to the "Newspeak" that was imposed by the authorities in George Orwell's book '1984'. The idea of this contracted speech is to remove any subtlety and finer meaning from the language, and thus remove the communicational and reasoning skills of the population. Calling Cannabis "Drugs" encourages one to think of ALL drugs as one and the same homogeneous entity and then to repeat the Mantra "Drugs is bad" completely forgetting that they are all VERY different , these differences mean that very different approaches are needed to all the different drugs, bot legal and illegal-to-possess.

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