€1m worth of drugs seized in Drogheda last week were displayed in garda headquarters today.

Homegrown cannabis factories are generating massive profits for Irish and foreign gangs, with figures indicating growhouses uncovered by gardaí are capable of producing around €100m worth of the drug every year.

The above photographs of an industrial plant outside Tullamore show the sheer sophistication of a professional cannabis factory.

TO one seasoned community worker, who is far from a scaremonger, the cannabis now is not cannabis as previous generations know it.

The gardeners used by organised gangs to tend to cannabis crops are often little more than “slaves” who usually have to live in squalid conditions.

The prosecution has today closed its case against a man accused of involvement in a €29m drug operation last year.

Families living in terror of drug dealers because of debts owed by their children are being urged to use a new confidential system without fear of repercussions.

Custom officers have for the first time seized the highly addictive drug methamphetamine after an attempt to traffic it out of the country.

Seven men have been charged in connection with a garda operation in which 5,800 cannabis plants were seized.

Drug experts have said the seizure of 10kg of head shop drugs indicates a “lucrative trade” of the former legal highs on the black market.

GARDAÍ have sent a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to the sale of banned mind-altering drugs in a head shop.

A 56-YEAR-OLD German is believed to be the “big fish” in an international drugs gang which had been storing 80kg of cocaine in a shed in a remote village in Co Cork.

GARDAÍ have dismantled two more cannabis grow houses in separate operations in Louth and Laois.

THE seizure of 12.5kg of heroin — the biggest haul of the drug in four years — will have an impact on the streets, drug groups said yesterday.

CUSTOMS and gardaí have made the biggest haul of cannabis resin in more than a year-and-a-half.

A MAJOR “wholesale” drug supplier and his girlfriend have been caught with a massive haul of cocaine after armed gardaí pulled over his top-of-the-range Audi.

A GARDA pilot project aimed at combating intimidation of families by drug dealers is due to be launched in December.

GARDAÍ said they uncovered a “new method” for concealing drugs after they netted €1.8 million worth of cannabis.

GARDAÍ have warned head shop owners and staff that they face prosecution from today if they are found selling mind-altering drugs.

GARDAÍ and Customs have made the first significant seizure of the recently banned head shop drug mephedrone.

GARDAÍ have smashed a major heroin supply network involving a family-run operation in the south east.

GARDA Commissioner Fachtna Murphy warned Irish drug traffickers “who hide in the sun, in some foreign clime” that they would not escape justice.

THE Kinahan gang operated an “international” drug and gun trafficking operation and a “global investment service” laundering “hundreds of millions” of euro for some of Europe’s biggest gangs, including his own.

GARDAÍ have taken away three truckloads of illegal products from head shop wholesalers in Dublin.

JOHN KINSELLA’S case is unique in many ways.

GARDA Commissioner Fachtna Murphy has announced a series of appointments at senior Garda management level.

Two men were remanded in custody today over a €3m drugs seizure.

GARDAÍ are looking at setting up a secure system to allow drug users and their families to safely report intimidation from drug gangs.

ONE of Dublin’s biggest and most violent gangs was targeted yesterday in a massive Garda swoop on more than 50 homes and offices.

GARDAÍ yesterday busted another Asian-run cannabis factory as part of an operation into organised crime involving a Dublin gang.

GARDAÍ arrested two men and one woman yesterday when they swooped on three sophisticated cannabis factories in Roscommon and Longford.

GARDA sources yesterday confirmed that the huge haul of methamphetamine seized this week was in powder form and not the highly addictive crystal methamphetamine.

GARDAÍ yesterday said the quality of cocaine seized in a haul of the drug on Wednesday was “extremely low” and was only about 7% pure.

THE Garda’s serious crime unit yesterday smashed a drugs gang and recovered up to 3,000 stolen plasma televisions, worth up to €1.6 million.

FOUR people have been arrested following two separate drug seizures in the postal service.

MR B has been a significant target of the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) for the last 10 years.

Detectives were tonight questioning a husband and wife after one of the largest single heroin seizures in history.

Spiralling heroin abuse has sparked fears among top gardaí of a crime timebomb across the country, it was warned today.

OVER €9 million in drugs and cigarettes were seized in separate raids and searches by gardaí and customs officials over the weekend.

ALMOST €5 million in cash and assets was targeted and seized by the drugs squad using hard-hitting new legislation over the last year.

GARDAÍ are investigating separate reports that a major Irish drug dealer has been shot dead in Spain.

THE six heroin addicts who died over an eight-day period are thought to have been killed by normal heroin and not contaminated heroin.

WEST AFRICAN drug trafficking gangs are using Eastern European nationals to smuggle cocaine into Ireland, it has emerged.

AN Irishman arrested in connection with a double murder in Spain is expected to appear in court today.