Poison protest ‘symbolic’

A protester who rubbed rat poison on Nelson MPNick Smith’s clothes says she was making a ‘‘symbolic statement’’ against the Brook Valley brodifacoum drop.

Medicinal cannabis campaigner Rose Renton said she and her husband were the protesters shown on a video that emerged yesterday confronting Smith near the Nelson Market on Saturday.

Renton lives in the Brook Valley, but said she was not part of the Brook Valley Community Group, which has opposed the pest control drop at the Brook Waimarama sanctuary. She only wanted to make ‘‘a stand against the environment Mr Smith has poisoned’’.

‘‘It was a symbolic gesture of his support of the poison drop without the required 48 hours notice to surrounding community.’’

Renton is the mother of teenager Alex Renton who died in 2015 after becoming the first patient in New Zealand to receive a medicinal cannabis product to treat ‘‘status epilepticus’’, a kind of prolonged seizure.

Renton denied the minister’s claim that the poison had been rubbed in his face.

‘‘I wanted Mr Smith to see exactly what it feels like to have poison in your backyard.’’

Smith is standing by his statement that the incident ‘‘became quite frightening when it escalated from verbal abuse and throwing rat poison at myself and volunteers to physical shoving and rubbing rat poison over my face and clothes.’’

He said the video footage only covered part of the incident.

Police are investigating Smith’s complaint. Video emerges, p3