Express & Star

Cannabis plant seizures rise in West Midlands crackdown

Tens of thousands more cannabis plants were seized in the West Midlands, compared to last year, new figures show.

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Some cannabis plants which were recently seized in Great Barr

Statistics released by the Home Office show a total of 351,881 plants were seized in the UK this year, with the majority being found in the West Midlands.

This area alone ranked up a haul of 67,776 over the last 12 months, an increase of almost 19,000 from 2017, with the UK as a whole seeing an rise of 9.4 per cent of drugs bust compared to the previous year.

Staffordshire saw the biggest increase in the region with almost 10,000 more drug busts, whereas other West Midlands regions had an increase of 1,712.

The West Midlands figures also included data from Warwickshire and West Mercia forces.

The number of cannabis plants seized

The statistics showing the change in numbers between 2017 and 2018 came from garden retailer comparison site WhatShed.co.uk, who have created a map outlining the different figures for drug busts in each region of the UK.

The increase in cannabis plant busts in the West Midlands was three times the figures for London, whereas the East Midlands saw 20,000 less plants seized than the year before.

This comes after a number of cannabis factory busts in the Black Country in the last few months.

More than 450 plants were discovered in a huge factory in a retail unit in Smethwick.

The drug bust happened in August this year at an address on High Street, where 469 plants were found.

Elsewhere £2.5 million worth of cannabis was uncovered at an old factory in the Brownhills Business Park.

Also found in August this year, the huge haul saw 2,400 plants growing in 19 rooms across two separate floors and was the biggest drug raid of the year in the area at the time it was found.

Officers in the Black Country were busy with drug busts at the time after £1 million worth of cannabis was found in Wolverhampton at the end of July.

Around 900 plants were found at an industrial unit in East Park after officers were called to a suspected burglary.