A bit of flyspray with your pie?
Does that pie taste good? How about now – with fly spray and acetone on top?
This is what a pair of west Auckland cops is asking troubled teens, to get them to think twice about synthetic drugs, the police’s Ten One Magazine reported on September 27.
Constables Dermot Forde and Reuben Jakich have given six presentations at Alternative Education centres.
They hand out a pie before taking it back and spraying it with chemicals, including acetone and flyspray.
The idea is to illustrate the danger of synthetic drugs, which coroners are looking at as a possible cause in the deaths of about 20 people recently in New Zealand, including deaths of west Aucklanders.
‘‘In a shop you see pies labelled ‘steak’ or ‘chicken’ – if one was labelled ‘unknown ingredients and might kill you’, would you eat that?’’ Jakich told Ten One Magazine.
Dermot said the idea came about after he found he was coming across 12 and 13-year-olds smoking synthetic drugs.
The pair give 15 to 20 minute presentations at the six Alternative Educations centres, five in west Auckland and one on the North Shore.
Like many New Zealanders, police can also enjoy a good pie – free of poisonous chemicals of course.
The Google Maps street-view camera was found to have snapped a pair enjoying a munch on an Otago roadside in 2015.
Police showed a sense of humour and uploaded the image to their Facebook page.
And spraying pies with chemicals is not the first time police in New Zealand have used the popular pastries in their crime fighting.
Sergeant Guy Baldwin gained international attention in 2009 after an appearance on the reality television crime show Police Ten 7. A suspected car thief told Baldwin that he was heading to a service station to buy a pie.
‘‘At three o’clock in the morning that pie has been in the warming drawer for probably about 12 hours.
‘‘It’ll be thermo-nuclear. You must always blow on the pie, always blow on the pie. Safer communities together, OK,’’ Baldwin said.
That clip went viral and featured on South Park.