COMMENT: For too long cannabis has been seen as harmless

Its users will argue that it is certainly no worse than alcohol and champion the plant's medicinal properties.

But in today's Express & Star we reveal the dark side of the drug that has a much wider impact on our communities than is immediately apparent.

Production of cannabis has direct links with other criminal activities.

Cannabis factories are frequently linked with people trafficking, while the money made from the sale of the drug is ploughed back into the underworld, frequently in the shape of firearms and the production and distribution of other drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

They also put in serious danger the lives of those unfortunate enough to live near to any site that has been converted for cannabis production.

Criminals' botched efforts to bypass electricity has led to dozens of fires across our patch in recent years.

Worryingly cannabis factories are sprouting up all over the Black Country and Staffordshire at an alarming rate. They are set up in every type of building imaginable, from units on industrial parks to the bedrooms of terraced houses on quiet neighbourhood streets.

We were able to buy everything needed to grow cannabis for a couple of hundred quid, including seeds capable of producing high powered weed.

The lighting, tents and extraction gear is usually specifically aimed at cannabis growers. The argument that it is simple gardening equipment to aid the growing of tomatoes seems ludicrous.

Bizarrely it is all completely legal to buy and sell, which may partly explain why last year alone West Midlands Police seized a staggering 40,000 cannabis plants worth an estimated at £22m.

The state of affairs is naturally a cause of great frustration to police, who have called for legislation to make the equipment and seeds more difficult to get hold of.

They told us the ease of its availability means that people who would not usually be involved in any criminal activity were taking up cannabis growing as a means of making a quick buck.

The current law blurs the line between what is legal and what is not.

Producing illegal drugs should not be a task made straightforward by the fact that the ingredients are available at low cost in almost every town and city.

Mike Wood MP has vowed to push for a change in the law - and we are more than happy to back him.