“Used Reefer To Show Off And Play The Big Man”

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30168, 27 June 1963, Page 11

“Used Reefer To Show Off And Play The Big Man”

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND. June 25. A man told the police he had a marijuana cigarette in his possession so he could “Show off and play the big man," said Senior-Sergeant G. A. Dallow in the Magistrate’s Court at Auckland today. Before the Court was Joseph Whitehead, aged 21, an apprentice fitter, who pleaded guilty to a charge of being in possession of marijuana, at Hamilton on April 28. He was represented by Mr J. Benson.

Mr L. G. H. Sinclair, S.M., convicted Whitehead and remanded him on bail for a week for a probation report and for sentence.

Senior - Sergeant Dallow told the Court that Whitehead was in a car with two girls at Hamilton when he offered a cigarette to one of the girls and told her it would make her laugh. The other girl, realised it was a dope cigarette and told the girl not to smoke it. The cigarette was put in the glove box of the car, but a quarter of an hour later Whitehead tried to get it back.

The girl then stopped a policeman and gave the cigarette to him. Senior - Sergeant Dallow said the cigarette was analysed and found to contain marijuana.

Whitehead told the police he had been to a flat in Onehunga two months previously and had smoked marijuana cigarettes there. Later at another party he was given a “reefer” to smoke but he kept it instead. This was the one he gave to the girl at Hamilton.