Cannabis laced with P sparking police raids on tinny houses

The discovery of gangs selling cannabis laced with P to teenagers has spurred on Auckland police in the war against the cannabis drug trade.

Inspector Jim Wilson, area commander for western and central Auckland, said 15-year-olds have bought small amounts of cannabis not knowing it was laced with P (pure methamphetamine).

"It's going right down to the young people - P is highly addictive . These young people are starting off on cannabis and then they're being graduated up to methamphetamine, a class A drug," he said. "They think it's quite innocent to buy it off their local dealer, but that person has links to the gang scene here in Auckland - it's all coming from the gangs."

He said officers raided three addresses in the past week, and had made 70 arrests in the past few weeks for possession, supply and cultivation of cannabis.

"We've been targeting our top list of tinny houses - it's like the supermarket, it's where all the dealing is done - and knocking them off," he said.

Mr Wilson's area of command includes the suburbs of Ponsonby and Grey Lynn through to Balmoral, Avondale and Pt Chevalier.

He said he believed the number of police raids was hurting the gangs' operations.

He declined to identify the names of the gangs, but said they were "not a nice bunch".

"One of the tinny houses where we executed a search warrant, they were turning over $17,000 a week - there's plenty of money to be made in cannabis," he said.

For $884,000 annually it is easy to see why, when police shut one tinny house down, another pops up somewhere else.

"Methamphetamine at the moment is getting all the high profile in the community - and rightly so - but what we're saying is just don't forget the cannabis trade is alive and well."

Negative effects of the trade, he said, were burglaries, aggravated robberies and serious assaults.

Mr Wilson said that was why police were appealing to the public to come forward when they observe suspicious activity at a residence, including foot traffic or vehicles day or night.

He said people should take note of registration numbers and contact police.

Information would be treated as confidential.

"It's an ongoing thing and we're not letting up at all."

- NZPA