POLICE USED 'SOB STORY' IN STING

Undercover police unfairly used emotion-charged stories about their
"terminally ill" parents to entrap minor players during Operation
Lime, says a New Plymouth defence lawyer.

Police swooped on 35 gardening businesses across the country in
April.

The two-year operation resulted in 250 arrests, more than 700 charges
and busted more than 100 commercial cannabis growing operations.

One of those arrested was New Plymouth shop assistant Reuben Wade, 25,
who had been unfairly taken in by the undercover female detective who
had gone into Guru Gardener, his counsel, Paul Keegan, said yesterday.

The police transcripts of the conversation between the two reveal that
the officer had told Wade her mother was terminally ill with cancer
and asked for help to grow cannabis plants to help alleviate her pain.

"Police have set him up," Mr Keegan said.

"It was a terrible thing to go into a shop and use a story like that.
It is entrapment. It's effectively harassment by the police.

"They have entrapped him into having the knowledge that it will be
used for cultivation. It's quite appalling really."

It was not until nine months after the undercover operation that Wade
was arrested and charged with two counts of supplying drug-related
equipment after the sale to the undercover officer of a book on how to
grow cannabis, and some fertiliser.

Yet the book Wade sold could easily be purchased elsewhere - as could
the fertiliser, Mr Keegan said.

Results from a search by the Taranaki Daily News of the Whitcoulls'
website comes up with the same book Wade sold to the police officer
along with 179 other marijuana-related titles.

"It really makes a mockery of the law. It is clear that some reform is
needed," Mr Keegan said.

Last week in the New Plymouth District Court, Wade pleaded guilty to
the two indictable charges.

He will be sentenced on August 16 when Mr Keegan said he would make
strong comments in mitigation.

A national police spokesman said yesterday that police did not comment
on any "operational matters involved in covert or undercover
operations".

However, he said the offenders apprehended during Operation Lime not
only sold literature on how to grow marijuana, but also went on to
provide detailed oral advice and sold equipment and materials to
assist in the growing of cannabis.

The sale of books on marijuana was a matter for the Department of
Internal Affairs which had responsibility for classification of
publications, police said.

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VERBATIM

At 11am on July 15, 2009, a female undercover police officer enters
Guru Gardener on Devon St, New Plymouth.

Shop assistant Reuben Wade greets her: "Hey, how are you? Do you need
a hand?"

"Yea," the detective says, who calls herself Kay. "I'm looking at
growing a couple of plants for my mother because she is terminally
ill. I've heard it is really good for pain relief," she says.

"Yea," Wade replies.

"But I don't know anything so I have to pretty much start from
scratch."

The two go on to discuss the book, called Marijuana Horticulture: The
Indoor/Outdoor Grower's Bible by Jorge Cervantes.