WARRIOR IN BATTLE FOR LIVES

Shane White is an unlikely person to be standing up with the police
and delivering a message against P.

After all, he spent nearly 10 years in Auckland Prison at Paremoremo
for murder and for a long time thought anyone in a blue uniform was
the enemy.

Not everyone approves of the Tainui 37-year-old's involvement in Te
Pakanga o Te Ngangara (the Meth War), an effort by police and Maori to
raise awareness of P's dangers.

"There's a few Pakeha cops who don't like the idea that this bloody
criminal's up there championing some sort of cause with them," said Mr
White, who was 19 when he killed a man he claimed had raped his sister.

The tough-talking West Aucklander has been travelling the country for
three months with police iwi liaison officers from Waitakere and North
Shore and representatives of Hoani Waititi Marae in Glen Eden.

When not on the road, Mr White teaches at Hoani Waititi and is
studying for a degree in Maori studies at Auckland University of Technology.

A striking figure with long black hair and a warrior's frame, Mr White
takes a deep breath before addressing the 100 or so people gathered at
a session for university students.

He tells how two of his friends have killed themselves after getting
hooked on P. One man hanged himself, the other stabbed himself 38
times. Mr White, who admits to having tried P, has no answers. All he
knows is that the drug is everywhere.

The tangi for one of the men was held in a town he said had "one
marae, three houses, no shop, but you could still buy P".

Later he said he was something of a reluctant messenger. Looking worn
and vulnerable in a woollen hat that shrouds his hair, he said he
agreed to join Te Pakanga only because of the damage P was doing to
those closest to him.

Hoani Waititi, where Mr White works with teenagers who have been
kicked out of school, has adopted a strategy of keeping young idle
hands busy to stop them using P.

"We just try to fill up their day, get in their day as much as you
can, so at least you know when you're there, they're not [using it],"
he said.

Whether the strategy will work he doesn't know. But Mr White said
success tended to be measured in small doses at the marae.

"We have so many people that are walking tightropes, close to falling
into jail. There's people here that are right on the edge, that are
trying their hardest to have a lifestyle change."

Mr White, married with a 3-year-old daughter, proves it's possible to
change. He grew up in a family of nine. As a child, he remembers
piling into his parents' old Humber 80 to go and steal apples from an
orchard for dinner.

At 14, he was expelled from school. Bored by work as a painter, he was
soon doing time for car theft.

By the time he shot the alleged rapist in the chest, prison had become
a way of life. "I got to the stage where I accepted doing six months
of the year in jail," he said. "I knew everybody there." Mr White was
sombre when talking about the murder.

"I regret it. I wish I didn't shoot him," a pause, "in the heart. Now
I wish I shot him in the knees. I think, well, you know, it might have
even been worse."

Maori educationist Pita Sharples, one of several people who campaigned
for Mr White's release, said: "In the prison his crime had a lot of
mana because he killed for his sister."

Mr White spent the first years of his life sentence stoned and getting
into trouble, his only aim to set a record for the most misconduct
reports.

But an elderly Maori prison volunteer named Anatia saved him. She
taught kapa haka performing arts and encouraged Mr White to get in
touch with his culture.

"She said, 'Who the heck are you? You're not just Shane White. And if
you are, then oooh, you've got to get something else to put in your
kete [kit] because you're a bit empty there'. She was awesome," he
said.

Mr White began learning Maori and earned nine anger-management
certificates. Dr Sharples, who has worked with many young Maori
prisoners, took notice of his efforts.

"I knew he had real potential," he said. "And now he's
delivering."

Te Pakanga team member Constable Andre Morris said Mr White made kids
think twice about using P and committing crime. "He's been there as a
teenager. It's real."

Mr White said he finds it hard dealing with people who are personally
affected by P. "It's terrible because they all come up and cry and
give you these really terrible stories and say, 'Fix it up'. "I can't."