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BBC Radio 5 Live

5 live Investigates

5 Live Investigates

Factual: Consumer

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting edge investigative journalism

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting edge investigative journalism, as well as taking on listeners' campaigns and consumer issues

5 Live Investigates: Middle Class Cannabis Farms

25/09/2011

Middle Class Cannabis Farms

BBC Radio 5 Live - 5 Live Investigates, Middle Class Cannabis Farms

Investigating the squeezed middle-classes renting out the spare room - to drug farmers.

Adrian Goldberg interviews the squeezed middle-classes renting out the spare room to drug farmers. He discovers cannabis growing is moving to the suburbs to avoid police detection.

Adrian Goldberg finds that cannabis farming is increasingly a suburban phenomenon. 

He interviews a professional woman from a leafy village in the North West of England who is growing cannabis in her spare room, and a drug dealer from the West Midlands who has a number of middle-class professionals letting their spare room to him for a share of his cannabis-farming profits. 

They tell him that cannabis growers now prefer to rent rooms from willing landlords - rather than take over whole houses - because it is easier to avoid police detection. 

Adrian also speaks to DCI Martin Hurcomb from West Midlands Police about the changing nature of cannabis farming and what the authorities are doing about it.

Plus, we reveal the high-street shop that's been selling customers a camcorder they didn't want. It says the camera was a better model than the one advertised, but was it really?

And we hear the inside story of BBC Newsnight's investigation into international boxing. 

If you have a story for the 5 live Investigates team, email goldberg@bbc.co.uk.

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