WATCH: The £200 drugs factory for sale: Legal loophole lets shops sell DIY cannabis equipment
Potent marijuana seeds and all the equipment needed to start up a cannabis factory are being legally sold on the streets of the Black Country and Staffordshire.
Now, Dudley South MP Mike Wood is leading calls backed by West Midlands Police for a change in the law to limit the availability and increase the price of equipment, including specialist grow lamps, fertilisers and grow tents.
He will raise the issue in Parliament in a bid to clamp down on what he called the 'scourge on our society' of cannabis factories.
Mr Wood said: "There is no reason why any of this equipment should be so freely available when it is plainly obvious that it is being used to produce illegal drugs.
"I fully support any action to either or limit or ban its sale."
It comes after West Midlands Police said the availability of grow equipment is a major factor in the huge numbers of cannabis farms that sprout up in the area.
Cannabis production – dubbed by the force as 'the cash point of the criminal world' – has direct links to other crimes including human trafficking and Class A drug dealing. Last year the force seized more than 40,000 cannabis plants worth an estimated at £22m, in raids that spanned from large scale commercial operations to bedroom set-ups in suburban homes.
Police cannabis disposal team manager Mike Hall said: "It is all perfectly legal equipment, but its availability has made growing cannabis easier. It would help if there was legislation against the gear and it was more difficult for people to get hold of.
"For some large scale enterprises we see people spending £15,000 on grow equipment. Now if we could make it so they had to spend £60,000 then they might be less likely to do it."
More than 20 'grow shops' that sell the equipment have opened up all over the Black Country and Staffordshire in recent years.
In Walsall there are six, with the same number in Wolverhampton, five in Sandwell, four in Staffordshire and two in Dudley. The stores operate within the law and market themselves as sellers of hydroponics equipment and materials to assist the budding gardener.
They are not allowed to sell seeds on the same premises as grow equipment, although seeds such as the ultra-strong AK-47 strain are available from specialist 'head shops'.
We were able to buy seeds capable of producing premium strength cannabis – sold legally as 'souvenirs' – in a shop in Wolverhampton city centre for £30.
The seeds are marketed as 'souvenirs' and are generally accompanied by a warning that germinating them is illegal.
