Warrior in battle for lives

By JULIET ROWAN

Shane White is an unlikely person to be standing up with the police and delivering a message against P.

After all, he spent nearly 10 years in Auckland Prison at Paremoremo for murder and for a long time thought anyone in a blue uniform was the enemy.

Not everyone approves of the Tainui 37-year-old's involvement in Te Pakanga o Te Ngangara (the Meth War), an effort by police and Maori to raise awareness of P's dangers.

"There's a few Pakeha cops who don't like the idea that this bloody criminal's up there championing some sort of cause with them," said Mr White, who was 19 when he killed a man he claimed had raped his sister.

The tough-talking West Aucklander has been travelling the country for three months with police iwi liaison officers from Waitakere and North Shore and representatives of Hoani Waititi Marae in Glen Eden.

When not on the road, Mr White teaches at Hoani Waititi and is studying for a degree in Maori studies at Auckland University of Technology.

A striking figure with long black hair and a warrior's frame, Mr White takes a deep breath before addressing the 100 or so people gathered at a session for university students.

He tells how two of his friends have killed themselves after getting hooked on P. One man hanged himself, the other stabbed himself 38 times.

Mr White, who admits to having tried P, has no answers. All he knows is that the drug is everywhere.

The tangi for one of the men was held in a town he said had "one marae, three houses, no shop, but you could still buy P".

Later he said he was something of a reluctant messenger. Looking worn and vulnerable in a woollen hat that shrouds his hair, he said he agreed to join Te Pakanga only because of the damage P was doing to those closest to him.

Hoani Waititi, where Mr White works with teenagers who have been kicked out of school, has adopted a strategy of keeping young idle hands busy to stop them using P.

"We just try to fill up their day, get in their day as much as you can, so at least you know when you're there, they're not [using it]," he said.

Whether the strategy will work he doesn't know. But Mr White said success tended to be measured in small doses at the marae.

"We have so many people that are walking tightropes, close to falling into jail. There's people here that are right on the edge, that are trying their hardest to have a lifestyle change."

Mr White, married with a 3-year-old daughter, proves it's possible to change. He grew up in a family of nine. As a child, he remembers piling into his parents' old Humber 80 to go and steal apples from an orchard for dinner.

At 14, he was expelled from school. Bored by work as a painter, he was soon doing time for car theft.

By the time he shot the alleged rapist in the chest, prison had become a way of life. "I got to the stage where I accepted doing six months of the year in jail," he said. "I knew everybody there."

Mr White was sombre when talking about the murder.

"I regret it. I wish I didn't shoot him," a pause, "in the heart. Now I wish I shot him in the knees. I think, well, you know, it might have even been worse."

Maori educationist Pita Sharples, one of several people who campaigned for Mr White's release, said: "In the prison his crime had a lot of mana because he killed for his sister."

Mr White spent the first years of his life sentence stoned and getting into trouble, his only aim to set a record for the most misconduct reports.

But an elderly Maori prison volunteer named Anatia saved him. She taught kapa haka performing arts and encouraged Mr White to get in touch with his culture.

"She said, 'Who the heck are you? You're not just Shane White. And if you are, then oooh, you've got to get something else to put in your kete [kit] because you're a bit empty there'. She was awesome," he said.

Mr White began learning Maori and earned nine anger-management certificates.

Dr Sharples, who has worked with many young Maori prisoners, took notice of his efforts.

"I knew he had real potential," he said. "And now he's delivering."

Te Pakanga team member Constable Andre Morris said Mr White made kids think twice about using P and committing crime. "He's been there as a teenager. It's real."

Mr White said he finds it hard dealing with people who are personally affected by P. "It's terrible because they all come up and cry and give you these really terrible stories and say, 'Fix it up'.

"I can't."

HARD LESSONS

Readers have responded to our request for personal experiences with P:

It got to the stage I couldn't step into a shopping mall or go anywhere because I felt people were staring at me or laughing at me.

It had created such a high intensity of fear in me. I locked myself away from everyone.

It has taken me over a year and a half to recover. That's not to say I am fully recovered, but I do feel 100 per cent better than when I was on it.

One thing I stress to you all out there is never get into an argument with a person high on P. The results could be fatal. - Anonymous, Manurewa.

* * *

The father and I became good friends. I started to notice the black eyes, cuts to him and his girlfriend's face, their cars kicked in and the fighting with each other when on P.

He told me coming down on P was so bad that suicide seemed a better choice. He took his life. He left a simple note saying he loved his children but "wasn't a good man".

For me he was a good man. He just took bad drugs.

My sadness is for his children, who had to bury their dad because of P. - Anonymous, Whangaparaoa.

* * *

I was hooked. I used it to assist with sales at work. I used it to wake up in the mornings. I used it to go out at night.

Rapidly she became my mistress, and I was hopelessly infatuated.

I was convinced that I was being watched, that I was undergoing some sort of test by an unidentified secret society. I was sure all my phones were bugged, and would go to extreme lengths to foil the people who were following me.

Eventually, I attended the funeral of a friend I had not seen in quite some time who had killed himself.

He had experienced paranoia, had heard the TV speaking to him and eventually hung himself. I decided to stop using. - Steven.

* * *

I was on it for eight days straight, night and day. My boyfriend was also doing it and we both knew that we had to stop as it was affecting not only our relationship, but our state of mind.

The after-effects were unreal. I was anxious, angry and extremely stressed.

I thank God and my own strength for getting off it before it took control of my life.

It has a sort of freaky way of taking hold of you. I went cold turkey and stayed strong. - Worried Kiwi, 22, female.

* * *

I haven't had a good sleep in days. I sleep with a golf club next to the bed waiting for the inevitable to happen.

No sound goes unnoticed in our bedroom. We are constantly watching the footpath outside, waiting for the crashing of glass - we don't know what's going to happen.

All we did was accept a family friend into our home. We didn't know what the boyfriend, who followed, would bring.

What do you do when you have reason to believe drugs are being distributed from your home? Do you tell the police? - Anonymous.

* * *

In 1995 four mates and I moved to Sydney. We got involved with drugs and soon discovered that the most evil and addictive of all was speed.

I can clearly remember at the time all of us thanking our lucky stars that New Zealand didn't have a problem with speed as there were already enough lunatics there. - Anonymous.

Herald Feature: The P epidemic

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