DRUGS CHARGE DISMISSED

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29324, 1 October 1960, Page 14

DRUGS CHARGE DISMISSED

Cigarettes Made Of Marijuana

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, Sept 30, A charge against a 34-year-old truck driver, Keith Desmond Field, at being in possession of marijuana was dismissed by Mr W. H. Carson, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court at Wellington today. ' Mr R. Stacey represented Field, who pleaded not guilty. The police case was conducted by Mr P. W. Matheson.

Detective Sergeant S. T. Bennett, of the Wellington C. 1.8., said in evidence that he went to a house in Aro street on September 14. He interviewed Ronald Clive . Polson, the owner of the house. A search of the house had revealed a package containing three home-made cigarettes which appeared to be made from marijuana. The cigarettes were found by the bed of Field, also an occupant of the house. “He could give no explanation for the cigarettes being at his bedside," said Sergeant Bennett. “He said he had been visited by a woman called Maureen earlier that morning. He believed the . cigarettes could have been left by the woman who stayed two hours.” Maureen Sonia Herregraven. a married woman, said she visited the house in Aro street on the morning of September 14. She denied she had left the cigarettes in the house.

Mr Stacey: Are you a friend of Anna Hoffman?

Mrs Herregraven: Yes. I have known her about a year.

Did you know Hoffman had been charged with being in possession of dangerous drugs?—Yes I have heard about it.

Mrs Herregraven denied the cigarettes were hers. There was no case against his client, said Mr Stacey. The Magistrate said: “There is nothing in the Dangerous Drugs Act which says it is an .offence to be in possession of drugs other than prepared opium. The drug in this case is marijuana."