Children becoming pot slaves in Britain

LONDON, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Hundreds of Asian children are being smuggled into England and enslaved by British marijuana gangs, it was reported Sunday.

Reduced penalties for growing and selling marijuana implemented in 2004 helped spur the growth of child trafficking into Britain, The Independent On Sunday reported.

Gangs shutter the children -- primarily Vietnamese -- in houses converted to marijuana growing operations where they tend to the plants under dismal conditions.

"In the past 12 months there has been a 500 percent increase in the number of cases being reported to us," one child advocate said. "We now get told about one young person every week being removed from a cannabis factory. But nobody knows the true scale of the problem."

Advocates say many of the children are victimized twice -- because most are discovered during police raids on the illegal greenhouses and are treated as criminals rather than victims.