Drug officers found DMA in bank bag

Press, 17 June 1982, Page 4

Drug officers found DMA in bank bag

Drug squad detectives and a customs officer found 61 “trips" of the powerful hallucinogenic drug. DMA. in a bank bag in a Riccarton flat, Mr Justice Casey and a jury were told in the High Court yesterday. Howard Alder Common, aged 28. a self-employed joiner, was found guilty oh a charge of possession for supply of the class A drug. DMA, on March 5. He was remanded in custody to June 22 for sentence. Mr G. K. Panckhurst appeared for the Crown, and Mr G. M. Brodie for Common.

Opening his case Mr Panckhurst said that drug squad detectives and a customs officer executed a search warrant on Common’s flat in Peverel Street, Riccarton, at 10.25 a.m. on March 5. Common was not home and he was brought from his work.

In the top drawer of a dresser in the bedroom a Canterbury Savings Bank canvas bag was found containing $2BO in $lO notes and a piece of green cardboard divided into squares and wrapped in tinfoil. Common told a detective that he knew the “trips” were there, but they were not his and the money was the remainder of $lOOO which he had withdrawn from the bank about a week before to pay accounts for his business. At the Central Police Station Common said that the previous night a “jerk” had come to his flat and offered to sell him "trips” and he refused the offer, which was made by a man named Steve who drank at the Imperial Motel and drove an Austin van. Later when Steve left he found the “trips” near where he had been sitting and he put them in the bank bag when he gathered up his business papers. His wife knew nothing about the man’s visit as she had been in bed at the time.

'Evidence would be given that the “trips” proved to be

DMA. a class A drug similar to LSD and were worth about $lOOO on the drug market. It was the Crown’s case that Common was in possession of a commercial quantity of DMA and was a dealer, Mr Panckhurst said. David John Blakemore, a supervising officer with the investigation branch of the Customs Department, said that. Common when shown the green squares had said: “Look, I know about them. They’re trips. They’re mine and’ the wife doesn't know anything about them."

Detective Jonathan Dalziel White, of the drug squad, said that Common had denied dealing in LSD. The price of drugs was not constant and it fluctuated according to availability and quantity and there were discounts for bulk purchases. DMA sold at around $2O a square which could be broken down into quarters. There were 61 squares of DMA in the bank bag.

To Mr Brodie, Detective White said that at the start of the interview that he had decided to charge Common with simple possession of LSD, which he thought the drug was at the time, but he decided to change it to possession for supply after Common had answered questions and. after taking into account the quantity involved. In his address to the jury Mr Brodie" said that a case had been made out for simple possession of LSD but it had not been proved that Common was a dealer. The detectives had started out with closed minds and were convinced that the money found in the bank bag was proceeds from drug dealings.

The detectives had failed to check Common’s explanation, which would have been easy to do. The jury could not adopt the same approach or come to the conclusion that Common was a drug supplier because there was no evidence. The prosecution had failed to prove its case, Mr Brodie said.