Police are determined to clean up Otara "tinnie houses" where a legal secretary and her child were amoung those caught buying small quanities of cannabis. The price of a foil wrapped "tinnie" seems to be $20 but the real price to this woman was more obvious when she said that she did not want her picture taken by a newspaper photographer. She was speaking of her rights. The police told her she should not have been buying drugs if she wanted her rights respected.
The woman was one of forty people caught buying cannabis in Otara, during the past few weeks. Police say they will continue targeting drug buyers and sellers in Otara until the town is "off the map as a tinnie house destination".
One may assume, if they are addicted to cannabis that they would find another source, maybe it's out of Otara, and maybe it's not. We do not question the police enforcing the law. We question the public strategy.
P use is rife in South Auckland. P is a harmful drug that kills people and ruins lives. Cannnabis has a national organisation dedicated to its normalisation within the law because its use is widespread. The police action is not rational. Why target users and a tinnie house (carrying a stock of $460 worth of tinnies, and a hammer) with police resources that are famously overstretched, while only skimming the surface of a billion dollar P industry of evil dealers and heartless manufacturers, to target disobedient civilians?
It is not just wasteful of precious police resources, but pits 25% of the population who would prefer cannabis to be as legal as a glass of red wine over dinner against the forces of law and order. The police need the citizenry to never be afraid to report a suspected P dealer or P factory. P is a crime that occurs in the community and damages lives within a few short months of excess.
What evil is being conquered here? Driving potential informants underground is a terrible strategy. Perhaps the police think this s good PR for their image shot all to pieces by allegations of sexual humiliation (at best) or what most people perceive as pack rape at the hands of out-of-control power-happy police.
It is not just a waste of police resources. It damaging public loyalty to the forces that are there to protect them.
These facts together spell a PR disaster for the police.
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