Pubdate: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand) Copyright: 2004 New Zealand Herald Contact: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/300 Author: NZPA DEALER BELIEVED CANNABIS A GIFT FROM MAORI GODS A drug-addicted grandmother who ran a "tinny" house believed cannabis was a gift from the Maori gods Rangi and Papa, a court heard. Mary Te Harihari Ake, 50, was sentenced in the Tauranga District Court to 21 months in prison. Judge Peter Rollo granted her leave to apply for home detention on humanitarian grounds because she has a young son. Ake's cultural adviser had asked the judge to dismiss charges against her because the gods gave all natural things on the Earth - including cannabis - - to their people. Ake appeared on a charge of selling cannabis after an undercover operation at her home in Papamoa. Crown prosecutor Duncan McWilliam told the court she had been caught selling marijuana from another address after her arrest and had two previous drug-related convictions. Her primary school-aged son lived at the "tinny" house and Ake's tinnies were kept in a large Milo tin. Ake admitted she had a cannabis problem. She said she had counselled troubled Maori teens on behalf of a Te Puna marae and was an alternative Maori justice advocate. Her cultural adviser, Rua Hillman, asked Judge Rollo to dismiss the charges because Rangi and Papa gave all natural things on the Earth - trees, bushes, herbs and even cannabis - to their people. But Ake said after the sentencing that she knew she had broken the law and must pay the consequences. As part of a drugs operation codenamed Celtic, an undercover policewoman visited Ake's house pretending to buy drugs. Ake boasted to the policewoman that she ran the only "tinny" house in Papamoa which had not been busted by police because she had friends in the force. Police raided the house in August 2002. Ake kept foil-wrapped packages of cannabis and her "tick list" of people's drug debts in the Milo tin and would sell the drug from her dining room table. Ake admitted she had sold between 20 and 30 "tinnies" of cannabis a week over a period of nine months. She and her whanau smoked a third of the cannabis she bought and she sold the rest to satisfy her own habit. Ake described her strong beliefs in alternative Maori medicine and alternative justice. She still believed cannabis should be legal because it was provided by Io-matua - the highest creator. Io-matua provided for Maori and Pakeha, so she did not expect special treatment because she was Maori. She said she started smoking cannabis after a car accident and quickly developed a heavy habit. Ake said she was not hopeful she would be able to serve her sentence at home because she had already been to prison and had committed drug offences on parole. But the shame of her drug habit and her children being shunned by whanau because of her was worse punishment than any judge could hand down, she said. Ake's application for home detention will be decided by the Parole Board in the next two months. - - NZPA - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart