Kids busted with drugs
‘Extremely concerning’: Under 9s among youth found with meth, cannabis
Police are finding children aged nine and younger with drugs, new figures reveal. Over the past five years, police have caught more children and young people with illicit drugs in Bay of Plenty than any other district.
And a former drug kingpin says children as young as six are smoking cannabis.
Details of police dealings with youngsters and illicit drugs between 2016 and 2020 were supplied to the Bay of Plenty Times under the Official Information Act.
The figures show 631 people aged 17 or younger had run-ins with police in the Bay, the most of any of New Zealand’s 12 police districts.
The Bay is the seventh biggest by population.
Nationally, when offences by young people resulted in court action, most were related to possession of illicit drugs. Other offences dealt with included dealing, trafficking and importing.
Cannabis was the drug most were caught with, however methamphetamine and ecstasy were also common.
More than 80 per cent of the youth police dealt with were aged between 15 and 17. However, five were aged five to nine.
Billy Macfarlane was once a major drug dealer in the Bay of Plenty but has since turned his life around and runs an offender rehabilitation programme.
“I think the reason the Bay of Plenty numbers are the highest is that we’ve got the most active police force,” he said.
“The Bay of Plenty police are pretty good and active of late.
“I’d say within the past five years they’ve stepped up.
“That’s why there are lots of busts going on in Rotorua, Bay of Plenty,
Taupo¯, O¯po¯tiki, Whakata¯ne – not because we’re the ones who have got all the drugs.”
In 2018, the police opened a branch of the National Organised Crime Group in Tauranga – the first outside Wellington and Auckland – specialising in drug investigations.
Macfarlane said there was an unwritten rule among drug dealers not to supply to children.
“When children are getting access to drugs it’s because they’re either stealing them or they’re around irresponsible parents,” he believed.
Last year, more than 800 youths were caught with cannabis by police nationwide.
The yearly average over the fiveyear period was 931.
Macfarlane thought people took a far too lenient approach to cannabis and said he knew of children as young as six and eight smoking it.
“It’s sad, because we’re just too casual about it. We say ‘it’s just cannabis’,” he said.
“People need to keep an eye on their children . . . We all need to do our part.
“We can’t keep turning a blind eye.” The figures show methamphetamine was the next most common drug youth were connected to, with 210 incidents over five years.
Macfarlane said he was surprised the number wasn’t higher.
He said developments like the dark web on the internet meant people could get their hands on meth for as little as $50 a gram.
Elsewhere, Department of
Corrections figures shows 5 per cent of the 6290 people charged with drug offences in 2020 were aged 19 years and under.
The police figures show they had run-ins with around 100 fewer youths in New Zealand last year compared to 2019.
Drug Foundation executive director Sarah Helm hoped amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 2019 were behind the decline.
One of the key changes gave police the discretion to prosecute for possession and use of controlled drugs.
“That could be because 2020 was an unusual year, where we were in lockdown for two months,” Helm said.
“It might also be because of the amendment and police taking a different approach to use and