'Cannabis, then to hard drugs’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 2

'Cannabis, then to hard drugs’

(N Z. Press ■ Association! HAMILTON, February 21. A large percentage of people who appeared in the Hamilton Magistrate's Court 18 months ago for smoking cannabis are now being charged with using hard drugs, sgys the senior Hamilton Magistrate, Mr T. B. Mooney, S.M.

The magistrate said he was drawing this conclusion from his observations and experience of the drug scene in Hamilton.

He made the comment when an unemployed Hamilton storeman, Kim Garry Dugdale, appeared before him in the Te Awamutu Magistrate’s Court charged with possessing and smoking cannabis. “I know as well as you do that cannabis is not addictive and does not necessarily lead to harder drugs,” he told Dugdale.

“But it Is a matter of association, and pushers

know who the cannabis smokers are, and the next thing they’re on hashish and probably cocaine.”

Dugdale, now serving detention centre training at Waikeria, pleaded guilty to the charges.. He was convicted and discharged on both counts.

Sergeant R. D. Howell told the Court that defendant had been searched by the Hamilton police and found to have seven reefers in a pocket. He told the police he was a cannabis smoker. “You’ve been on the drug scene for some time now,” said the Magistrate.

“What is your opinion now of cannabis smoking?” Dugdale said he would probably not continue with the habit because he “didn’t feel like being busted again.”

“But I think I would continue to smoke marijuana if it was legal,” he said.