KEY POINTS:
Children were smoking cannabis at last week's Parihaka festival, according to a Maori warden.
Imelda Mauriri said the peace at the festival was mainly drug-induced.
"I saw 10 and 11-year-olds smoking cannabis. I saw parents so stoned they couldn't find their babies," she told the Taranaki Daily News.
"It was disgusting," she said.
Miss Mauriri said Parihaka was supposed to be a religious and spiritual festival, but the organisers and participants "got this confused with being stoned".
More than 12,000 people attended the three-day festival at Parihaka Pa and Miss Mauriri said the prophet Te Whiti o Rongomai would be horrified to see what was happening at the marae where he practised passive resistance to government land-grabbing in the 1870s.
"I'm very concerned because it's our own Maori people who are condoning this," Miss Mauriri said.
"I'm worried this is the pattern for the future. I'm worried that young people will be exposed to this drugs culture and think it's normal. It won't stay peaceful when drugs are involved."
- NZPA
