Drivers may soon be forced to stand on one leg and take other tests if police believe they are under the influence of drugs. Parliament passed the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) last week and it will come into effect on December 1, allowing police to make drivers take a compulsory impairment test. If the test shows a driver is impaired, it will be followed by a blood test to determine if they had taken drugs. A Ministry of Transport spokeswoman said the walk and turn, one leg stand and eye tests had been specifically developed for identifying drivers on drugs, in conjunction with experts from the United Kingdom. [continues 249 words]
The peace at Parihaka last weekend was mainly drug-induced, says leading South Taranaki Maori warden Imelda Mauriri. "I saw 10 and 11-year-olds smoking cannabis. I saw parents so stoned they couldn't find their babies. "It was disgusting," she said. "Parihaka is supposed to be a religious and spiritual festival. "The organisers and participants have got this confused with being stoned." Well over 12,000 people attended the three-day festival at Parihaka Pa, featuring acts such as Cornerstone Roots, Katchafire and House of Shem. [continues 177 words]
A fresh pair of handcuffs adorned the wrists of fugitive Michael Hurford as he walked into the Hawera District Court yesterday. Police were taking no chances with the scrawny and unshaven man, who gave himself up on Tuesday after spending two weeks on the lam in dense bush behind Tahora. Hurford had hacked off his original handcuffs after escaping from a lone policeman who discovered a large cannabis plantation close to Hurford's makeshift hut on December 2. After dodging a three-day police operation and numerous appeals to the public to locate the man, a cold and hungry Hurford had walked on to the land of a farmer and begged him to call police. [continues 251 words]
A cannabis war is brewing in North Taranaki's hill country. The victims are the local farmers who claim they are being targeted by disgruntled cannabis growers looking for revenge after summer crops were raided by police. Locals on Kaka Rd, Okoki, say they are being terrorised by late-night vandalism to their property. Since a police cannabis operation in the area earlier this year, farm sheds and signs have been peppered with bullets, stock has been stolen and shot, farm equipment vandalised, fences cut and trees chopped down over the road, the neighbours say. [continues 473 words]
Standing beside his green bus, over looking the green of Puke Ariki, "Dakta Green" inhales, smiles and blows a thick cloud of smoke in the air. "It's very simple," he says. "We wish to legalise cannabis." Mr Green (aka Ken Morgan) was in New Plymouth yesterday on board "Maryjane the Cannabus" with members of the national organisation for the reform of marijuana laws (Norml). The group was on a nationwide tour planning to visit 42 towns and cities in 42 days, holding a protest at 4.20pm every day. [continues 254 words]
Murder accused "Jack" Frost claims he was on a one-man anti-P crusade when he killed Angela Deane in New Plymouth. Two video interviews with the accused were played to the High Court at New Plymouth yesterday. Duncan Conrad Murray Frost ,49, better known as Jack, is on trial for murdering Ms Deane, 55, at her Westown address on February 1 last year. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear and she had a gaping stab wound in her back. [continues 374 words]
Kirsten Dunst believes the world would be a "better place" if more people smoked marijuana. The Spider-Man actress has admitted she enjoys using cannabis and has branded America's strict marijuana laws as "ridiculous". Kirsten told Britain's Live magazine: "I drink moderately, I've tried drugs. I do like weed. I have a different outlook on marijuana than America does. "I've never been a major smoker, but I think America's view on weed is ridiculous. I mean - are you kidding me? If everyone smoked weed, the world would be a better place." [continues 160 words]
Many parents think addiction is a problem "other people's children" face, a drug and alcohol campaigner says. Taranaki parents wondering if their children are taking illegal drugs are about to get a helping hand from the Managers' Guild Trust. The trust, formed by senior police, will distribute a journal early in the New Year to give parents the latest information about drugs available to children today. Campaign co-ordinator Jeremy Anderson said most parents liked to think other people's kids used drugs, rather than their own children. [continues 332 words]
Australians have every right to feel cheated about the blatant double standards of the Indonesian system of justice, says the Taranaki Daily News. Even if Brisbane beauty therapist Schapelle Corby had willingly and audaciously tried to smuggle a boogie-board bag of marijuana through Customs on the Indonesian island of Bali, her 20-year jail sentence is massively out of kilter against the treatment of Abu Bakir Bashir. He is the founder and director of Jemaah Islamiah, an Islamist school and terrorist training base, identified as such by the United Nations and thus targeted for global attention. Its graduates were the bombers at Bali's Kuta Beach nightclubs in 2002, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians and three New Zealanders. [continues 378 words]
It was just another quickfire raffle at work - but the prize wasn't the usual meatpack or frozen chook. Instead, the winner would take home an ounce of sticky marijuana heads. And ticket seller Timothy Andrew Murphy's number was up when someone called the police. In the New Plymouth District Court yesterday, an embarrassed but smiling Murphy (25), of New Plymouth, admitted he was busted selling raffle tickets at his work on April 7. Judge Louis Bidois asked Murphy if he had lost his job as a result. [continues 122 words]
Two members of a group of four men were allegedly held at gunpoint and beaten after being found in a South Taranaki cannabis plantation, police say. Detective Sergeant Blair Burnett of Hawera told the Taranaki Daily News that the four, aged between 15 and 26, allegedly spent Sunday combing coastal wastelands looking for cannabis. They discovered a grove of 22 plants in a clearing among gorse and blackberry, but were interrupted by two men, one allegedly armed with a rifle. "Two of the young guys did a runner, dived over the gorse and blackberry into the stream and got away, the other two were allegedly taken hostage at gunpoint," Mr Burnett said. [continues 115 words]
A new anti-drug initiative in Taranaki schools is being heralded as the single biggest king-hit for youth justice by New Zealand's leading judge. High on Life is a revolutionary way of looking at drugs in schools and is trying to stop the destructive cycle of exclusion punishment. Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft is backing the initiative and will be in New Plymouth tomorrow and Friday talking to principals and community workers. "It's about the most effective first step we can take to attack youth offending, and it deserves community support," he said. [continues 398 words]
Queenstown pilots say the drug-spotting plane that crashed near Queenstown on Saturday did not have the power to low-fly through steep gullies and hills. Real Journeys chief pilot Dave Cross said yesterday that even though the Cessna 17 was great for commuter flying, training flights and general light duties, it wasn't the right plane for low-flying reconnaissance work. Detective Travis Hughes (37), of Queenstown, and Whakatane pilot Chris Scott (33) died when the Cessna 17 they were in crashed into a hill during an operation to spot cannabis plantations on Saturday. [continues 409 words]
A 25-year-old man was shot through the foot by an alleged marijuana grower, a New Plymouth District Court depositions hearing heard yesterday. Jason Watson was giving evidence before two Justices of the Peace. James Laughton Reeves (32), self-employed of New Plymouth, has denied possession of cannabis, cultivating cannabis, using a firearm in the commission of a crime, injuring a person with reckless disregard and two counts of recklessly discharging a firearm. New Plymouth unemployed man Nathan Paul Martin (32) has denied possession of cannabis. [continues 299 words]
At last, a Maori tribe is using its cultural muscle to tackle a contemporary and serious problem, says The Daily News. Methamphetamine use among young people, especially young Maori, has been causing unpredictable, violent and criminal behaviour for four or five years, ever since this vile drug reached New Zealand. Elders in Tauranga's Ngaiterangi iwi are tired of being abused and threatened by traditionally respectful grandchildren and other youngsters under meth's mind-skewing influence. It is curious that, after all the headlines about P, speed, crank, glass, burn - whatever its manufacturers and users call methamphetamines - and the litany of robberies, assaults and even murders, that the kaumatua and kuia of Ngaiterangi would draw the line at threats and discourtesies, but at least they have had the sense and gumption to declare some sort of war on drug abuse, and to go public with the declaration. [continues 306 words]
Accused drug manufacturers may walk free if a crisis at ESR (the Institute of Environmental Science and Research) is not soon resolved. The P epidemic hitting the country has resulted in a huge backlog in processing evidence gathered from clandestine laboratories discovered by police. Some cases were waiting 18 months to be heard in court. Criminal lawyers are now arguing that the wait for their clients is breaching the Bill of Rights, which requires people to be tried without undue delay. [continues 465 words]
A disenchanted judiciary is rightly beginning to take a hard line on P pushers, says The Daily News. In Napier Youth Court last week Judge Paul von Dadelszen sentenced a 17-year-old girl to three months in a youth justice facility with supervision. The girl earlier admitted buying, and then supplying, a flu product containing pseudoephedrine, which can be converted into methamphetamines. Her sentence is the highest available to Youth Court judges under the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act. Judge von Dadelszen also warned that drug users and youths peddling P faced "serious consequences". [continues 343 words]
Moves by the Government towards roadside testing for cannabis are so logical it is surprising the subject has not been raised before, says The Daily News. No matter that it is illegal, marijuana use is widespread in New Zealand and the weed has the ability to distinctly impair a person's ability to drive. The significant inhibiter to such tests, and the reason they have been delayed for so long, is the lack of a reliable and simple test like the breathalysers used to detect alcohol levels. [continues 359 words]
The methamphetamine derivative known as P is no recreational drug, says The Daily News. Those who have tried it a couple of times as a weekend diversion tell of the almost overwhelming urge to buy another hit. Many succumb. Just a handful of years after this drug first reached New Zealand, horror stories are emerging about people who had previously been alcohol and occasional drug users quickly becoming addicted to P and wasting, stealing and begging their way through hundreds of thousands of dollars in a frighteningly quick time. [continues 363 words]
Cold and flu medicines used to manufacture the illegal drug P or speed are set to become class C controlled drugs - the same classification as cannabis. Moves were afoot to move pseudoephedrine from the Medicines Act to the Misuse of Drugs Act, Taranaki District Health Board chief pharmacist Elizabeth Plant told the Taranaki District Health Board. Pseudoephedrine products are increasingly being used to illegally manufacture methamphetamine. Mrs Plant said under the Drugs Act, pseudoephedrine the active ingredient in cold and flu medications like Sudafed and Nurofen, would become a class C controlled drug. [continues 67 words]
