A SEASONED cannabis cultivator was jailed for six years and three months after police discovered three growths of the class B drug in a 16-month period.

Neville Dargue was on bail after two “home grows” were found last year, when a third “professional set up” was found after the fire brigade responded to a call to his home on the evening of July 14 this year.

Durham Crown Court heard that a crew responded to a report of a suspected fire at the address in Surtees Street, Bishop Auckland.

Liam O’Brien, prosecuting, said when firefighters checked the exterior of the property everything seemed “in order”, but there was no response to a knock at the door.

They forced entry and found cannabis being grown across two bedrooms.

Police have found a stash of 500 cannabis plants today in a massive indoor dope-growing operation.

Inspector Naila Hassan said police searched warehouse accommodation on Wordsworth St, Cambridge.

"This led to the discovery of a large commercial indoor cannabis growing operation in which over 500 plants were recovered," Ms Hassan said.

"As a result of this a 23-year-old male was arrested and will be appearing in the Hamilton District Court today facing charges relating to the manufacturing of cannabis oil, cultivation of cannabis, possession of cannabis for supply and the possession of drug related equipment."

Ms Hassan said Western Waikato CIB staff joined Cambridge police to conduct the raid.

Imports of synthetic cannabis have been rising since the Psychoactive Substances Amendment Act took the products off shop shelves last year.

The drug - along with the likes of meth, ecstasy, and Alpha PVP, which is also known as bath salts or flakka - were being found in mailed packages at the country's border.

Customs cargo operations manager Bruce Berry said people try to fly under the radar by going online to order small quantities from overseas.

"What we're seeing is a steady supply of smaller quantities of products in the domain. We're certainly seeing synthetic cannabinoids, we're seeing psychoactive substances, but we're also seeing the mimics there in the same space," he said.

A baby girl caught chewing on a capsule of cannabis oil had to spend three days in hospital earlier this month.

A man was sentenced in the Whanganui District Court yesterday for possession of the oil.

The child was unharmed.

Alexander Charles Holmes was moving with his partner and 13-month-old child on September 11, into his partner's sister's home. The sister has an 8-month-old daughter.

The group were unpacking at the house and had items "scattered" in the hallway, police prosecutor Sergeant Rachel Willemsen said.

They went outside for a break amidst the unpacking, when the sister discovered her daughter chewing on the capsule.

The child had greenish, blackish smudges around her mouth, Ms Willemsen said.

The New Zealand Government's new drug policy is out of step with international best practice and is not fit to be presented to the UN in 2016, the Cannabis Party says.

New Zealand's drug policy is a throw-back to racist 20th century hysteria that is completely at odds with the scientific evidence regarding drugs.

The policy deliberately ensures that the drugs which are legally accessible do the most harm to New Zealanders, while medicinally beneficial plants are banned.

The policy makes no distinction between low-risk substances like cannabis, high-risk hard drugs and alcohol.

It forces compulsory drug treatment on innocent cannabis and drug users, many of whom are likely to have no problems with addiction.

Don't hesitate to medicate," call the spruikers in their white coats on Hollywood Boulevard and Venice Beach, California, where doctors licensed to prescribe medical marijuana do a brisk trade. Walk-ins merely have to turn up and describe some vague pain or high level of stress to bag their weed.

The rest of the world seems to be trying to ignore it, but slowly and surely the United States of America, until recently leading the charge in the war on drugs, is legalising marijuana possession. Twenty states, from Alaska to Vermont, have already decriminalised adult cultivation and use of cannabis.

Campaigners for cannabis law reform are working to start a conversation they hope will get politicians to act.

At a weekend screening of documentary Druglawed at the Free House, film director Arik Reiss was joined by Nelson's Rose Renton, who had campaigned for her son to be treated with a cannabinoid oil while in intensive care, and Abe Gray who runs a cannabis museum in Dunedin, and campaigns for legalisation.

Renton's son Alex died in Wellington Hospital on July 1, he had suffered seizures and it was not known what caused them. She has since dedicated herself to cannabis law reform for both medical and recreational use. 

Every morning, Rose Renton asks her son Alex to help her be strong and continue fighting in his name.

Alex was a fit and healthy teenager, but died on July 1 in Wellington Hospital, after spending months in an induced coma in "status epilepticus", a kind of prolonged seizure, the cause of which remains unknown.

During her son's illness, Renton made headlines as she and her family pushed for and were successful in getting Alex to be treated with medical cannabis oil.

Renton says the treatment was too little and too late, but regardless, her life has been turned upside down since.

Somedays, she still cries all day about him.

It's clean and certainly green and now New Zealand's only cannabis museum is opening its doors for overnight guests.

Whakamana, the Dunedin-based cannabis museum, is now listing its guestroom on AirBnB.

"Awesome queen bed with reading lamps, a bit of closet space, plenty of electricity outlets and a few houseplants," the promotional blurb on the accommodation website says.