Drug dealer's daughter who beat horrors of P

Lucci Hennah is now an early childhood teacher in Manurewa. Photo / Richard Robinson

Lucci Hennah has lived through the scourge of P in the family - and come out the other side smiling.

The 24-year-old early childhood teacher became the face of the Herald's War on P series last year when she told her story of growing up with a drug-dealing father.

As a teenager she had to visit pharmacies to buy packets of cold tablets containing pseudoephedrine, the raw ingredient of methamphetamine.

She remembers getting the pills unchallenged and leaving the shop thinking: "You just sold to a drug dealer's daughter."

Her father, who smoked P as well as selling it, was beaten to death with a metal bar in the driveway of his Waihi home five years ago. No one has been arrested for his murder.

For Lucci, who was 4 when her mother died of breast cancer, the lesson is that P does not have to be a life sentence.

Determined to put her past behind her, she is now happily teaching pre-schoolers at Manaaki Whanau in Manurewa.

She is pleased at the anti-P moves from the Government since last October, especially the ban on pseudoephedrine in cold and flu pills. "It's fantastic that they've finally stepped in to make a difference."