Marijuana Media: Big busts reveal prohibition’s folly

Kia ora! New Zealand’s biggest ever weed bust, our biggest ever drug haul, and “Well done” Zac Guildford – all this and more on Marijuana Mediaon 95bFM, with your hosts Jonny from bFM Drive and Chris Fowlie from The Hempstore.

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‘We thought they were growing tomatoes’: Inside NZ’s biggest cannabis bust  

The neighbour “thought they were growing capsicums and tomatoes,” while another local said “You’d get a bit of a whiff and think, ‘nah, that’s my imagination’.” But police found 6500 cannabis plants in 11 hoop greenhouses at the Takehe, Northland, farm last November.

David Fisher revealed the details In the NZ Herald. It far exceeds the country’s previous single biggest bust; 4800 plants discovered by Police covering a hillside in Whanganui National Park – which itself got a huge photo on the front page of the Herald.

The Takehe property had only changed hands a few months previously, and a bunch of Vietnamese nationals soon got very productive. This would have been their first crop. Police think organised crime was behind it, and if similar operations overseas are any guide, they will be indentured worker-slaves lured here under false pretences of a better life. Locals say Police left a lot behind and they took was “as good a smoke as anything else grown locally.”

The detective in charge said the plants were “particularly abundant in terms of their ‘head’ material”. (This was last November, when sun-grown plants are typically small seedlings with buds typically developing over the summer – however as pointed out by Jonny on the bFM show, they plants could be autoflowering). Police burned the crop in the field next door, “from eight in the morning until eight o’clock at night,” dumped into the ground what they later called organic chemicals, and are now intending to seize the property.

NZ’s largest every drug bust with 3.2 tons of cocaine found at sea

Reported in the Herald and the Washington Post, the NZ Navy retrieved 81 bales from the ocean, not a floating garbage patch but a cache of drugs floating in the Pacific. It’s the biggest ever seizure of drugs by NZ authorities, valued at over $500 million and enough to keep Aotearoa snorting for an estimated 30 years.

The cocaine bundle was “set up into nets” with flotation devices. The design is not uncommon, said Greg Williams, a senior detective with the New Zealand police. “There’s multiple ways in which organized crime will want to get its product in our country,” Williams said. This includes flying drugs on planes, sending them in the mail, shipping them by sea, or hand-carrying them in suitcases. “And this is just one of those ways.”

The bust comes as wastewater testing results show cocaine use is on the rise in New Zealand, while meth and MDMA have peaked last year and are now on the comedown.

Drug overdoses on the rise; cannabis the safer choice

A new analysis by the NZ Drug Foundation of coroner’s reports has found drug overdoses including by alcohol, have risen 54% from 2017-2021. Opioids, alcohol, and benzos make up the top three. They can all be accessed legally or illegally, and are all used as medicines, yet they can all kill people who use them.

Cannabis does not feature in the list of overdose stats, yet is a substitute for all those more risky substances. For reducing pain, help with sleeping or just getting high: cannabis is the safer option. It’s a fact that if people used less of the stuff that can kill, and more weed instead, there would be fewer overdoses. In the US, legal cannabis stores are linked to fewer opioid related deaths. However the local stats also show combining sedatives is risky, so don’t mix your weed with things like alcohol or opioids. Keep it pure!

The NZ Drug Foundation’s recommendations to reduce overdoses include piloting an overdose prevention centre, increased availability of naloxone, increased public health messaging, changes to the Sale and Supply of Liquor Act, and – no surprise to Marijuana Media listeners – implement the Law Commission’s 2011 review of the Misuse of Drugs Act and repeal and replace the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. Just throw it out and start again!

Zac Guildford smokes pot, breaches bail; former boss says “well done”

Media have gone wild over former All Black Zac Guildford being caught breaching his home detention by consuming cannabis. The road to recovery is difficult, and even more so when in the public eye.

Guildford, previously diagnosed with ADHD, appeared in the Christchurch District Court this week where he was convicted and discharged for breaching home detention which had been imposed following a series of events related to his addictions to alcohol and gambling. The breach was smoking some weed, which is often used by those with ADHD to control their symptoms.

Judge Raoul Neave warned Guildford that if he “smokes any more stuff” then he will be in trouble. But his former boss said she was incredibly proud of everything he had achieved during the past year and compared with everything Guildford had worked through, such as gambling and alcohol addiction, a “bit of pot” was minor. “For me the fact that he’s breached for a little bit of pot, I think ‘well done Zac Guildford’.”

To me it sounds like Zac Guidlford’s use may be medicinal, and I think he should get a prescription. With an otherwise spotless recent past, it appears his use of the healing herb is keeping him out of trouble – except with the law.

To get a prescription, see The Hempstore’s guide on how anyone can access medicinal cannabis, or ask us instore for more information.

Marijuana Media airs every Thursday at 4:20pm on 95bFM, with your hosts bFM Drive’s Jonny and Chris Fowlie from The Hempstore. Stream or download the pot-cast for this show here or hundreds of previous Marijuana Media shows at 95bFM.com (or via iTunes / RSS feed).