READING NEWS ON DRUGS 'A LOT OF FUN', SAYS MCDONALD

Former TV3 newsreader and drug addict Darren McDonald admits getting high
and reading the news to thousands of viewers was "fun", but says he has now
kicked his drugs habit.

He was speaking two days after being sentenced in the High Court at
Auckland to eight months jail after admitting one charge of offering to
supply ecstasy and one of conspiring to supply methamphetamine.

Justice Frater released him on bail to allow him to apply for home detention.

McDonald said that after achieving fame in Australia as the country's
youngest ever newsreader at age 17 with an audience of six million viewers,
he came to New Zealand where the smaller audience meant he was no longer
exhilarated by the job.

"The joy of performance was not there, so I substituted it with drugs,"
McDonald told TVNZ's Sunday programme.

"The more I got away with it, the more I found that adrenaline rush. There
were many times I read the news and I was under the influence.

"I was getting a countdown and the words on the autocue were going from the
left-hand side of the room, to the right-hand side of the room, and I had
to use all of my conscious strength to just pull them together and read. I
found that exhilarating.

"I found doing the drugs and then reading, something that was just a lot of
fun. To be doing something so secret, yet be doing something so public."

McDonald said at the worst stage of his addiction, he was spending up to
$1000 a week on ecstasy and pure methamphetamine, known as P.

Despite having his car repossessed four times, he maintained the expensive
drug habit. He would always pay his dealer from his pay each month, before
any other bills.

McDonald, who is homosexual, said drugs helped break down barriers for him
when he went partying with a large group of friends.

However, when was arrested, he found many of the people he thought were
friends fell out of contact with him.

He was caught after a hotel room he frequented to buy drugs from his
dealer, was bugged by police.

But he said the arrest was an awakening and he was now clean.

"The one thing I have done is discover myself. When I was arrested, 18 to
20 months ago, the best thing that happened was the police raiding my
apartment and charging me. I stopped the drugs," he said.

"I was always concerned about what other people would think, and now I
don't give a rats, and that has taken me 36 years to get to.

"I'm happy, I'm very happy."