POLICE GET OK TO SELL DRUGS

Undercover police will be allowed to sell and supply drugs under new
state laws.

While Police Minister Tom Barton says officers will be pulled out of
operations if they use drugs, new laws being introduced will allow
them to sell narcotics. Mr Barton says covert police should not have
to use drugs and they will be regularly drug-tested during operations.

However, several former covert agents have told The Sunday Mail they
regularly had to use drugs to maintain their cover and gain the
confidence of targets.

They said they also bought, sold and supplied drugs while working
undercover.

Fifteen former covert police operatives who claim to have suffered as
a result of undercover work are suing the State Government for
negligence causing personal injury.

They have filed individual Supreme Court writs and most claim they
were sent into operations without adequate warning that they could be
exposed to psychological and physical stresses.

Some of the former police, who served undercover between the late
1980s and mid-'90s, claim they were put at risk of injury or death
because of unsafe working conditions.

Other former covert officers are also consulting lawyers about
possible lawsuits against the government.

Several former agents who spoke to The Sunday Mail said they developed
drug and alcohol problems while working undercover.

They say their years in covert work ruined their lives and
careers.

Some still have severe depression years later and they have been
unable to maintain relationships or hold down full-time jobs.

They say they were inadequately prepared for months of living under
false identities within the drug scene.

And when they came out of covert work they had no retraining to
reintroduce them to mainstream policing.

Former undercover cop Tyron Mangakahia said some agents posing as
buyers or dealers had sold drugs because it would have seemed highly
unusual if they refused to sell to targets who knew they had supplies.

And he said agents sometimes paid informants with drugs when there was
no money available.

One former officer said his controller once suggested he sell cocaine
as part of an operation and another said he sold speed and marijuana
and supplied small amounts of heroin.

Mr Barton said covert police might have to sell or supply drugs to
track drug networks back to the organisers and financiers of major
operations.

Under new laws, a committee headed by a retired judge will give
approval for necessary lawbreaking during operations.