Middle class in Midlands turn to home cannabis growing

Sep 25 2011 by Ben Goldby, Sunday Mercury

MIDDLE class homeowners are beating the economic downturn by renting out rooms to cannabis growers, a shock investigation has found.

Suburban professionals in the Midlands are being targeted by drug dealers who pay them thousands of pounds to “rent” a room and turn it into a mini cannabis farm.

A police crackdown on large-scale drug cultivation has forced enterprising gangs to scale down their operations and instead target family homes in leafy suburbs.

The vast majority of growers produce “skunk”, the most powerful and harmful type of cannabis, which has been linked to psychosis, depression and anxiety.

And the drug dealers have found that hiding their facilities inside family homes is the best way to avoid attention from West Midlands Police helicopters, which use heat-seeking cameras to identify the farms.

A 41-year-old married family man from West Bromwich, who has never been in trouble with police before, revealed how he got involved in illegal growing operations.

The dad-of-four said: “I was approached through family and friends. He (the dealer) just said he wanted to rent a room and named a price. At the time I did need the money, so I went along with it and never had a problem.