Big hauls of cannabis this season

Press, 14 March 1985, Page 2

Big hauls of cannabis this season

The police are finding bumper crops of cannabis plants throughout New Zealand in a season in which a record number of plants are likely to be seized.

“We have been more successful in detecting rhe plants this year," said tbe director of drug enforcement and Intelligence. Detective Superintendent R. N. MacDonald.

Tbe latest police figures available are for last year, when more than 112.900 plants were seized. This was more than double the number seized in 1983. Indications are that this season has been a good one for growers, and a busy one for the police who try to foil them. Mr MacDonald said that he did not know whether the bigger number of seizings was because of improved police detection or whether more cannabis had been grown.

They had been successful. Mr MacDonald believed, to

the extent that there were more substantial numbers of plants seized. •‘We have tried to use the resources available to us more effectively," be said.

Helicopters and ground searchers were used to find cannabis plantations.

Growers used electric fences, opossum traps, and camouflage nets to safeguard tbeir crops.

Mr MacDonald said that the biggest finds had been made in the traditional cannabis growing areas of Northland, Coromandel, and Nelson.

Thousands of plants had been seized on many sites. Toe type of plantations found showed that smalltime and commercial growers were active. Mr MacDonald said that tbe police were concentrating on commercial growers. Searchers for cannabis plants would continue to the end of tbe growing season, which lasted until May in some parts of New Zealand.