TEENS FIND CANNABIS 'FREELY AVAILABLE'

Any Nelson teenager wanting to buy cannabis would know where to find
it, say police who admit they don't have the resources to target the
region's high number of dealers.

Nelson Bays Police area commander Inspector Brian McGurk spoke on
Friday of the "significant impact" the drug was having on young
people in the community, after 11 Nelson College boarders were suspended.

The students, who were aged 15 and 16, had been growing and smoking
cannabis on school grounds.

Mr McGurk said they would be dealt with in a "more educative than
punitive" manner by police Youth Aid, as this would achieve a better
long-term outcome for them.

He said it was easy for teenagers to buy cannabis in Nelson because
it was so widely grown and so many groups adopted a permissive
attitude towards the drug's consumption.

He said that while police did not turn a blind eye to cannabis
offending, they were unable to target each and every case of cannabis dealing.

In the last three months, the number of police apprehensions related
to cannabis offending in Nelson was up a third on the same period
last year, Mr McGurk said.

Detective Senior Sergeant Wayne McCoy of Nelson CIB said that with
the rise of methamphetamine use in the region, police were putting
more resources into what they saw as a drug with "aggressive" effects.

The public wanted to see police tackle violence, and methamphetamine,
or P, was more likely to result in violent offending, he said.

He said that while police were not "letting dealers get away", they
were reliant on complaints coming in from the public about suspected dealers.

If they did not have these to act on, they were accused of harassment, he said.

Nelson College principal Gary O'Shea said the college became aware
about two weeks ago that boarders were buying cannabis in the
community and using it off school grounds at weekends.

"We then quietly conducted some interviews and it became apparent
that there were some reasonably heavy users amongst this group, so we
called the police," he said.

Mr O'Shea said six small cannabis seedlings had been found growing on
the college grounds in a forest above the boys' boarding lodge.
Police brought dogs to the school and discovered a quantity of
cannabis and some growing tools.

Mr O'Shea said the school would convene a disciplinary hearing within
seven days. He emphasised the nine 16-year-olds and two-15-year-olds
were suspended at this stage, not expelled. Any prosecutions would be
"over to the police".

"The police are allowing us to follow our processes. They obviously
know who all the boys are and they will continue their
investigations," Mr O'Shea said.

Cannabis was freely available in the community and the boys knew
where to look for it, he said.

"Clearly they've become involved and then there's been a sequence of
poor decision-making.

"This is not a hard-core, drug-dealing, money-making enterprise," Mr
O'Shea said. "They've thought 'why should we be paying for it when
we've got seeds? Let's try and grow them up the back of the school'.

"They've obviously made some very silly decisions over the last few months."

Mr O'Shea said cannabis wasn't a "significant problem" at Nelson
College and the school didn't have a "one strike and you're out"
policy on drugs.

"We have boys who are identified as users who have an opportunity
through drug testing and counselling to come clean," he said. "We
encourage boys to come forward if they do have a drug problem."