A Christchurch teenager made a prophetic warning about safety in the weeks before he was crushed to death while working for a company with an ingrained drug-abuse culture and ineffective management.

James Kirkpatrick, 18, had told his parents about his concerns of working for Onyx, saying he did not feel safe and the garbage collection company had "slack management".

Within weeks, he was dead after being run over by the truck on which he had been working.

Christchurch Coroner Richard McElrea yesterday released a report rebuking the company for having tolerated widespread drug use at work, for poor management of the Christchurch operation, and for allowing "inherently unsafe" workplace practices.

[continues 684 words]

Wheelchair-bound and brain-damaged beneficiary Neville Yates is back in prison as accusations fly over him becoming a pawn in the cannabis debate.

Christchurch District Court Judge David Holderness yesterday sentenced Yates to five months jail for growing cannabis, which the sickness beneficiary uses to relieve the chronic pain he has endured since being hit by a truck 30 years ago.

As the judge acknowledged that Yates would find jail hard, he had a swipe at the cannabis activists in court who had played a part in Yates's doomed defence of medical necessity.

[continues 530 words]

A wealthy Christchurch businessman who was caught growing cannabis has escaped without a conviction after convincing a High Court judge that he used it medicinally.

Ian Murray Jackson, 55, admitted cultivating $12,000 worth of the drug in a high-tech hydroponics operation at his Burnside home. However, the $300,000-a-year company director claimed smoking cannabis was the only way he could mitigate the pain of his chronic bowel condition at night while remaining capable of running his high-tech international business during the day.

[continues 624 words]