DAWN'S BAKING TOO HOT TO HANDLE

In Waimate, they brake for mobility scooters.

"Wellcom earth pepole," says the misspelled sign on the pink blow-up
alien outside the second-hand store.

Looking for oysters, an $83,000 section, an iced chocolate lamington?
You can buy them all on the main street of Waimate.

Winter sunshine sits in the folds of the old people's camel-coloured
coats. Squint. The light is bright in this small South Canterbury town.

The average weekly rent is $92. The median income is $13,300. Nearly 30% of
the population is aged over 60. That's more than twice the national norm.
In the words of local pharmacist Paul Townsend: "We don't dispense a lot of
oral contraceptives and morning-after pills."

Aches and pains, coughs and colds. And in March, the kind of newspaper
report you don't expect from a clean and tidy town: "A 68-year-old
Waimate caregiver has admitted growing cannabis plants to assist with
her husband's pain relief."

Dawn Sarah Willis still won't talk to the media. Standing on her
doorstep, she has the gravel of age in her voice and wears her grey
hair long against a grey jersey. Her house is purple and there are
wind chimes out the front.

Is she embarrassed at the drug charge, her first court appearance, the
police seizure of a large pot of cannabis cooked with butter, 80
plants and 15 items of assorted baked goods?

"No one suspected," she says, then adds that she doesn't like the
thought of kids smoking it. A polite goodbye. She has to go make a
dent in 100 hours of community service.

The law doesn't care whether you're young or old. Waimate police
sergeant Mike van der Heyden, stiff beside his large desk, concedes
there are "certainly some elderly people who use cannabis and possibly
other drugs. I suppose that era of drug users, as they grow older,
their habits go with them."

Drug-recovery operations turn up about 1000 plants a year in the
Waitaki River area. Do the police really care about an old woman's
baking?

"It's not the police's role to choose when the law is enforced and
when it's not. That's made by the government. We are certainly going
to uphold the law as it stands. Until it is changed, those found in
possession will be charged."

Downtown Waimate and local farmers are winding up a presentation on
how to grow Chinese greens. Periodic detention workers hose down
fibreglass replicas of the town's wallaby icon. The cross-stitch group
meets in the Methodist church hall on the third Sunday of every month,
but if you want help with your problem gambling, then, according to
the town notice board, you've got a 40-minute drive to Timaru.

Tall trees and a taller concrete silo mark Waimate, says the
promotional website. It's touted as a great place to make movies:
"Locations are both adventurous and romantic."