TOP STORY: Cannabis hooking kids on P

Hawke's Bay youngsters are being tricked into using the dangerous drug methamphetamine by dealers who sell cannabis laced with it, says a teenager.
Denise (not her real name) says drug pushers stand outside the gates of Hawke's Bay schools giving cannabis laced with P - a street name for methamphetamine - to students as they leave.
The young people who smoke the cannabis develop a taste for the effects of P before they even know they've been in contact with it. When they go back to the tinny houses - where small quantities of cannabis wrapped in foil (tinnies) can be bought - they're more open to the idea of buying P, she says.
Her boyfriend unknowingly bought a P-laced tinny and smoked it with a group of her friends.
"We got trashed and started fighting," she says.
Fortunately, her boyfriend knew where the cannabis had come from "so we didn't go back there and get any more".
Denise, who has dabbled with P and watched helplessly as most of her friends have succumbed to addiction and its horrifying physical, psychological and social effects, says young people need to be warned that the cannabis they buy or smoke can no longer be assumed to be "clean".
Her claim of dope-lacing is not accepted wholeheartedly by police or a leading Black Power member, but it is supported by Massey University research.
Napier drug squad detective Chris Cahill says he's heard stories about cannabis laced with P. He's not sure how true they are but adds, 'I'm not saying it doesn't happen".
What he does know is that children are sometimes given free drugs a couple of times "to get them into it", and that dealers often give young people their drugs "on tick".
"The real advantage with young girls is how they will pay for it, and young boys have to sell it."
The youngest child Mr Cahill has come across using P was a 12-year-old in Hastings, caught with a point bag (0.1gram), but anecdotal evidence points to lots of other children using it, he says.
Black Power life member and community adviser Denis O'Reilly, of Waiohiki, says it wouldn't make sense to lace cannabis supplied to children and teenagers.
"P is not particularly attractive to young people. It appeals to people in their 20s and 30s," he says.
Mr O'Reilly, himself a former P user, says New Zealand is in the middle of an epidemic of P use, which can be stopped only by shutting down demand. He's working to persuade Black Power and the Mongrel Mob to stop using or selling the drug, which they can see is wreaking havoc within their own ranks and families.
In support of Denise's experience, research published by Massey University at the end of last year reveals a substantial change in the patterns of use and supply of P during the previous six months.
Done by the university's Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation (Shore) the survey covered police, health services and P users.
One aspect was to investigate changes in the way P is being sold, which drew reports of incidents of cannabis laced with methamphetamine.
The biggest changes noted by the survey is that P is being sold in smaller, more affordable quantities of 0.07g, called "clicks", for $20 to $50.
Survey participants also reported that P has become vastly easier to get. It is being sold by people from right across society, in places such as bars and restaurants and tinny houses. Traditionally, gangs have controlled general supplies of P.
Senior researcher Chris Wilkins said 11.9 percent of New Zealanders aged 15 to 45 had tried P, and 5.3 percent had used it during the previous year.
"That's a large chunk of the adult population," Dr Wilkins said.
* IN MONDAY'S HB TODAY:
A woman discovers her long-time friend is a P user when he attacks her in a drug-induced frenzy.