Cannabis has long been the most commonly used illegal drug in Britain, with 6.8 per cent of adults and 17 per cent of young people admitting using it in the past year according to crime surveys.
But whereas in previous decades it was imported in resin form from Africa or Asia, most users now smoke a domestically-grown and stronger herbal type of the drug known as skunk.
When ACPO first started counting the number of farms detected by police forces across the country, in 2007-08, it found 3,032.
Latest figures for 2011-12 show the number now stands at 7,865.
In the past two years a total of 1,096,797 plants were seized with an estimated street value of £207m.
Police say there has been an increase in robberies, burglaries and violence linked to the farms, including the "taxing" or stealing of crops and people being kept in "debt bondage" by gang bosses and ordered to cultivate crops.
In order to spread the risk and make it harder for police to spot the farms, which usually use high-powered lights to grow the strong-smelling drugs, gangs are reducing the size of their sites.
Cannabis farmers are managing lots of small farms across residential areas, sometimes even in blocks of flats.
This also allows growers to claim the plants are for personal use if caught, but the report says the number of plants seized is often above 25 which is the threshold for commercial cultivation.
The greatest number of factories were found in west and south Yorkshire, the west midlands, London and the west country.
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