Cops cook P and grow cannabis

BY STEVE HOPKINS

Police are taking on the P-cooks at their own game.

Squads of specialist officers sent in to dismantle methamphetamine labs are being taught "street chemistry, street recipes and internet recipes" for manufacturing P and other Class A drugs, information released to Sunday News under the Official Information Act reveals.

The squads known as clan (clandestine) lab teams are also being taught "the chemical pathways" to manufacture key precursors and reagents, and shown what materials and equipment are required to "manufacture such drugs as methamphetamine, amphetamine, MDMA, MDA and other less well know drugs".

Police national headquarters assistant commissioner, intelligence and investigations, Gavin Jones, said the clan lab teams' training also included a "practical component".

"Members view a range of the more commonly discovered manufacturing processes conducted under licence at an independent, audited and secure laboratory," Jones said.

There are about 30 clan lab team staff, with specialist units based in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

Assistant commissioner Jones said teaching clan lab staff how to cook drugs was essential to ensure they could dismantle drug labs safely and didn't put themselves and other police staff in grave danger.

"Our staff come across meth being manufactured in various stages and it's useful to know if it's at an early stage, a high-risk stage ... and at various stages I understand that certain risks are attached," he said.

Jones said staff had to keep up with ever-changing drug-making methods as the P epidemic showed no signs of declining.

"When clan labs first came on the scene most of them tended to be in relatively safe, semi-rural areas.

"Nowadays, we disrupt or discover clan labs in the boots of cars in motels and in suburbia," he said.

Jones didn't believe showing police how to make drugs, and giving them recipes to do so, could lead to officers illegally making them.

"(Police are) no more likely than the general population, who can download virtually anything off the internet these days," he said.

"If there was any hint of corrupt practices around the handling of drugs it would be, within our environment, very difficult not to be detected. That said, I couldn't put hand on heart and say we've caught every member of police that's dabbled in drugs ... it's just impossible to do that."

In February 2005, a constable from south Auckland was charged with theft and supply of P after he confiscated the drug during a traffic stop, only to later smoke it with his partner.

The officer resigned from the force before being charged and was sentenced to 300 hours community service for the crime.

And another officer from that police district, a temporary constable, is before the courts facing charges of possessing and supplying P.

Police refused to name the officer but said he "remained on suspension".

Sunday News can also today reveal police have used sophisticated hydroponic equipment to complete three cannabis growing cycles, nursing six plants at a time 18 in total to maturity.

Jones said the cannabis was grown as a "joint research venture" between police and Environmental Science and Research between 2004 and early 2006, under licence from the Ministry of Health.

In the past three years the MoH has issued two licences "to grow cannabis in New Zealand". A MoH spokesman said the licences were approved for "scientific research and testing by appropriate scientific agencies".

Jones said police wanted to grow the cannabis to determine the size of potential harvests and gauge THC levels which have increased dramatically worldwide over recent years. THC is the primary intoxicant found in cannabis.

Police needed to know how strong New Zealand's cannabis was so they could "start benchmarking our trends and patterns", and compare it with international levels, he said.

ESR last tested Kiwi cannabis in 1996 and found it had an average THC level of 3 percent. They concluded it had remained steady for two decades.

"Internationally it's up around the 20 percent mark, so we're just not quite sure what it is here," Jones said.

A Kiwi cannabis grower based in Amsterdam where he has a cannabis seeds business called Kiwiseeds won the best sativa category at the 2006 Hightimes Cannabis Cup. He produced a Kiwi cannabis strain-crossed plant called Mako Haze that boasted a 20 percent THC level.

A report into the findings of the police cannabis growing operation is soon be completed. Jones refused to pre-empt the report by commenting on its findings but ESR forensic programme manager Jill Vintiner conceded the study showed THC levels had increased.

"From what I'm aware of the study has shown it (THC levels) are higher than previously reported," she said.

- © Fairfax NZ News