Pubdate: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 Source: Post-Courier (New Guinea) Copyright: 2000, Post-Courier Contact: P.O. Box 85, Port Moresby, National Capital District, Papua New Guinea Fax: (675) 320 1781 Website: http://www.postcourier.com.pg DRUGS IN COFFEE PACKETS Find Poses Threat To Industry, Says CIC THE impact of the illicit drug marijuana was serious on the coffee industry, according to a Coffee Industry Corporation officer. Acting chief executive officer Mewie Launa said if marijuana lured people away from their coffee gardens, coffee production was sure to decline. If that happened, the CIC would not achieve its aim of producing and exporting 2 million bags of coffee annually. Mr Launa envisaged a gloomy future for the coffee industry if marijuana gradually gained influence ahead of agricultural cash crops like coffee, tea and spices. Mr Launa said he was deeply concerned that people were being lured to the easy money that marijuana brought as compared to the toil and labor involved in coffee. He pledged CIC would help police where possible so that cultivation and trade of marijuana were minimised and discouraged. Coffee accounts for 75 per cent of Papua New Guinea's agricultural export earnings and if marijuana was to threaten the industry, Mr Launa predicted that coffee's annual income of half a billion kina would be jeopardised. Meanwhile, the CIC is conducting its own investigation into a roaster coffee exporter in Goroka after police intercepted six men with 16kg of high grade marijuana vacuum packed in coffee labelled packets. The CIC's investigation aims to find out if the vacuum packing was done at one of the two roasting factories in Goroka and whether the storage of the plastic bags was not prone to theft. CIC chief executive Badira Vari said police were also carrying out their own investigations. He said the packing of marijuana in coffee packets was a criminal matter and police had the prerogative to pursue and institute criminal charges on offenders. However, since the packaging involved coffee labels, CIC needed to conduct its own investigation to find out if a licensed exporter of roaster ground coffee had anything to do with the packing of marijuana. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek