POLICE TARGET 'EASY' MARIJUANA ARRESTS

Marijuana which grows prolifically in the hinterland of the mid-North
Coast has become a currency for "hard" drugs such as heroin, according
to the NSW Police area commander for Coffs-Clarence, Commander Peter
Wadsworth.

The drug arrest rate of 50 to 60 a month for the Coffs Harbour area is
the State's fourth highest, level-pegging with Lismore, after
Cabramatta and Kings Cross, Commander Wadsworth told the Herald.

However, only a low percentage of arrests are for heroin dealing
because his police officers deliberately target those supplying small
quantities of marijuana, he revealed.

"It is a hard thing to catch the dealers dealing," he said. They have
to be caught with the heroin and to charge them with supplying, they
have to have sufficient quantities.

As in Cabramatta, Coffs Harbour dealers resort to practices such as
hiding deals in small water balloons in their mouths.

The commander of drugs trafficking and production with the NSW Police
Crime Agencies, Detective-Acting Superintendent Dennis O'Toole, said
because heroin could easily be secreted, it was difficult to catch
suppliers.

"Even though the police know a person is a dealer, you still have to
have a reasonable case at that particular time," he said.

"You have to have evidence that he might be holding at the moment you
are in receipt of information that that person has a quantity of
heroin. The problem is to get the evidence to provide to a magistrate
to issue a search warrant."

Coffs Harbour user Ms Sharn Debrincat, who is on the methadone
program, said police should be able to catch dealers, whose names are
well-known in country towns. They were wasting their time
concentrating on marijuana, she said.

Two long-term mid-North Coast users also on the methadone program,
Eddie and Jane (not their real names), said police found it tough to
crack the heroin subculture.

"One gets busted and three take his place," said Eddie.

"There's always someone to step in," said Jane.

"It's a very cliquey little thing up here," she said. "It's not a lot
of people, but a lot know others. If one person is not doing business,
another person is."

Dealers may be out in the street, but in a coastal town like Coffs
Harbour, they camouflage their activities by replicating those of the
leisured, according to this couple.

"I know one who walked along the beach. There was one who fished on
the riverbank," said Jane.

The dope, said Eddie, may be secreted in a cigarette pack 50 metres up
the bank.

Those in the know can score easily in any town, according to Mark, 19,
who has been in rehabilitation at Sherwood Cliffs farm near Coffs Harbour.

"I'll walk into a pub and I can tell you straight away who is dealing.
You walk in and someone is sitting there on their own drinking an
orange juice, for crying out loud," he said.