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[medpot]

New Zealand: Pot Users Risk Criminal Record

URL: http://www.mapinc.or...7/n409/a07.html
Newshawk: http://www.norml.org.nz
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Thu, 29 Mar 2007
Source: Howick And Pakuranga Times (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2007 Howick And Pakuranga Times.
Contact: editor@times.co.nz
Website: http://www.times.co.nz
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2953
Author: Nic Daley


POT USERS RISK CRIMINAL RECORD

BLUE and white-collar cannabis buyers are being rounded up in an extensive police operation.

More than 40 purchasers have been arrested two weeks into Operation Buyer Beware.

Undertaken by Counties Manukau East police, the new offensive targets Otara tinnie houses and the people that visit them ( Times, March 19 ). Those arrested include tradespeople and professionals: a mortgage broker, shop assistant, nurse, locomotive engineer, cabinetmaker, panelbeater and storeman. Students and unemployed people have also been arrested in the sting. Their ages ranged from 17 to 55, with the majority living outside the Otara area.

Howick-based area commander, Inspector Jim Searle, says police want Otara off the map as a tinnie house destination. Instead he wants the area to be known as place where people will be arrested and charged if they try to buy cannabis or methamphetamine.

"Purchasers of illicit drugs are coming in large numbers from Auckland City, Waitemata and as far away as New Plymouth, Huntly and Tauranga. A lot of the people we have arrested don't have a criminal record and my message to drug buyers who go to Counties Manukau is that they risk carrying a criminal history for the rest of their lives."

He says police are working on ways of informing employers of when workers are arrested.

"We believe that not only are a number of people purchasing in work time, but also that a number of jobs are unsafe when people are affected by drugs.

Some people are visiting tinnie houses during the day and in company vehicles when making their purchases."

Mr Searle says the community is sick of the effects of tinnie houses.

"The message is that the public and police will not tolerate them.

"If you buy drugs in the area there will be consequences and zero tolerance, regardless of if you've been in trouble before or have an otherwise clean record. That is the risk," he says. "People should be reminded that a criminal history can impede you from travelling to some countries or even gaining employment with some organisations - it's not worth taking the chance."

The operation is ongoing, with police promising more arrests from the zero-tolerance approach.



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MAP posted-by: Derek