Call to look out for cannabis plots

Rural Manawatu residents are being urged to look out for cannabis crops as this year's growing season gets under way.

Police dealt the cannabis trade a big blow in February and March this year, confiscating more than 11,000 plants in the Central District, which includes Palmerston North, Levin, Wanganui, Feilding and New Plymouth. There were 1848 plants seized in Manawatu, Horowhenua and Tararua, and 257 drug-related arrests made district-wide.

Rural liaison officer, constable Neil Martin, said Manawatu police owed much of their success to tips provided by the public. Information from a Manawatu farmer about a suspicious vehicle last year yielded a haul of about 90 plants.

But Mr Martin did not want to see anyone taking the law into their own hands. "If it looks like cow s... and it smells like cow s..., don't step in it. Ring us to come and have a look at it.

"A vehicle parked on the side of the road once can have all sorts of meanings, a vehicle parked on the same side of the road, in the same spot, over a period of three, four, five days, that's a bit suss," he said.

Detective Greg Hogan, of Feilding, said suspicious vehicles, people and equipment such as spades, buckets, planter bags and fertiliser, should be reported to police.

Cannabis plants, which can grow up to 2.1 metres tall, had been found in thick bush and in places just five metres from the roadside, he said.

"Last year at Kakariki, right next to the road there were some good plots in the blackberry bushes, so it doesn't have to be remote or isolated areas. It grows everywhere from gorse right through to native bush, you'll have well cut paths and sometimes you don't know how they got there." While booby traps were not used much in Manawatu, growers often used possum traps, cyanide and netting to protect their crops from pests.

" ... there have been occasions when cannabis growers have been armed so that makes them dangerous," Mr Hogan said.

"You don't know who you are going to come across, so we don't want any confrontations."

* Anyone with information can contact Feilding police on 063236363.