Attempt to throw drugs into prison fails

An attempt to throw drugs into Christchurch Men's Prison inside a tennis ball has fallen short for the second time in two weeks.

About 60 grams of cannabis was inside the ball which was found in between the prison's two perimeter fences, and had obviously fallen short of the prison grounds, said acting prison manager Trevor Saunders.

He said attempts to throw drugs into prison grounds seemed to be in vogue at the moment.

Two weeks ago a tennis ball was found within the prison grounds during routine checks that contained triazolam pills - a sedative - and heroin.

However, Mr Saunders warned the chance such contraband would be found was high, and such finds were usually handed over to police.

The Corrections Department had a number of measures to fight the presence of drugs in prison, including visitor searches, vehicle checkpoints, drug detector dogs and randomly monitoring prisoner phone calls, Mr Saunders said.

"Nationally, random prisoner positive drug tests are sitting at an all time low and today's find is one of the ways we are achieving this."

- NZPA