POT USERS RISK CRIMINAL RECORD

BLUE and white-collar cannabis buyers are being rounded up in an
extensive police operation.

More than 40 purchasers have been arrested two weeks into Operation
Buyer Beware.

Undertaken by Counties Manukau East police, the new offensive targets
Otara tinnie houses and the people that visit them (Times, March 19).
Those arrested include tradespeople and professionals: a mortgage
broker, shop assistant, nurse, locomotive engineer, cabinetmaker,
panelbeater and storeman. Students and unemployed people have also
been arrested in the sting. Their ages ranged from 17 to 55, with the
majority living outside the Otara area.

Howick-based area commander, Inspector Jim Searle, says police want
Otara off the map as a tinnie house destination. Instead he wants the
area to be known as place where people will be arrested and charged if
they try to buy cannabis or methamphetamine.

"Purchasers of illicit drugs are coming in large numbers from Auckland
City, Waitemata and as far away as New Plymouth, Huntly and Tauranga.
A lot of the people we have arrested don't have a criminal record and
my message to drug buyers who go to Counties Manukau is that they risk
carrying a criminal history for the rest of their lives."

He says police are working on ways of informing employers of when
workers are arrested.

"We believe that not only are a number of people purchasing in work
time, but also that a number of jobs are unsafe when people are
affected by drugs.

Some people are visiting tinnie houses during the day and in company
vehicles when making their purchases."

Mr Searle says the community is sick of the effects of tinnie
houses.

"The message is that the public and police will not tolerate
them.

"If you buy drugs in the area there will be consequences and zero
tolerance, regardless of if you've been in trouble before or have an
otherwise clean record. That is the risk," he says. "People should be
reminded that a criminal history can impede you from travelling to
some countries or even gaining employment with some organisations -
it's not worth taking the chance."

The operation is ongoing, with police promising more arrests from the
zero-tolerance approach.