FREE HITS OF 'P' LURING CHILDREN TO SELL IT ON STREETS

Hastings: Drug dealers are giving children a free hit of pure
methamphetamine or "P" for every six they sell on the streets, a Hastings
community worker says.

Karen Nicol, the organiser of a Hastings seminar to highlight the
devastating effects of P, said she knew of children as young as 11 who were
selling the drug to feed their addictions.

"The kids I work with on the streets tell me they can get this drug more
easily than cigarettes."

Ms Nicol said she had worked in the field of drug and alcohol abuse for
years, but the effects of P were more severe than anything she had
previously seen.

Former Black Power member Dennis O'Reilly told about 100 people who
attended Thursday night's seminar he became opposed to the drug after he
saw it destroy a friend and former gang leader.

"He was a good man who didn't drink or smoke, but he had a puff of this
damn stuff, liked it and wanted more - and in 18 months he developed a
screaming psychosis and suicided in the most awful way."

But he warned that hysteria about the drug would give it a mystique,
potentially making it more attractive to young people.

He suggested the Government ban pseudoephedrine - a chemical in
over-the-counter flu remedies used to manufacture P.

Constable Kelly Pouwhare said P fuelled a large proportion of crime in
Hastings.

"The majority of burglaries we deal with are by juveniles, who used to do
it for cannabis at $20 a bullet. Now they need $100 for a point of P."

Hastings Detective Darren Pritchard said use of the drug was increasing at
a disturbing rate. So far this year police had busted 150 clandestine P
labs - more than in the whole of 2002, he said. - NZPA