At least three people have so far needed medical attention after lollies confirmed to have been laced with methamphetamine were donated to the Auckland City Mission.
A mother and her 3-year-old son have had a lucky escape, after trying potentially lethal doses of methamphetamine, disguised as pineapple lollies, that they received in a food parcel from Auckland’s City Mission.
A family friend is alarmed that after initially alerting police about the toxic sweets she was told it was okay for them to stay in the rubbish bin.
The family, from Uzbekistan, does not speak English. RNZ has since visited them with a translator, seen the lollies and contacted police on their behalf.
Meanwhile, Auckland City Mission’s scrambling to track down up to 400 families who may have also been given the sweets that are in fact about 3g of methamphetamine.
The lollies found to contain methamphetamine. Photo / NZ Drug Foundation
This prompted mission staff to try them themselves. After they experienced significant side effects, the Pineapple Rinda-branded sweets were immediately tested for drugs.
The results showed a single lolly has up to 300 times the average recreational dose of meth. The police have collected 16 lollies so far and three people have sought medical treatment but nobody is currently in hospital.
The pineapple sweets, which were donated to the mission, came in a sealed commercial-sized bag that was split up with a handful of lollies dropped in individual food parcels.
Lena is a friend of a North Shore family who received one of the parcels at 2.30pm on Monday.
“My friend, for whom I arranged to get the parcel, told me that once they tried their lolly, they stopped consuming them and they threw them away in the bin. I thought that was not the right way because I think they need to be disposed [of],” she said.
Lena said she called the police and explained the lollies were in the bin.
“The person spoke to their supervisor, came back to me and said they can’t be in the bin. They need to be disposed properly because it’s dangerous. Someone might find them and overdose.”
The police told her the family needed to go to the police station and drop the lollies off. She said the family could not as they did not speak any English and asked if the police were instead able to pick up the lollies.
“She again put me on hold and spoke to her supervisor and then came back and said that ‘No, I talked to the supervisor and basically, as long as it’s in the bin, it’s fine, don’t worry’.”
Lena said the police should be picking up the methamphetamine-spiked lollies when notified.
“New Zealand is a very relaxed country, but that sounds a bit too relaxed for me because we are talking about potentially a big volume of very serious drugs in the bin and what’s going to happen to them? Someone can pick them up and also, if they go to landfill, can someone still get access to them? I think that’s not right,” she said.
She said the child of the family was the first to try the lollies.
“It was a 3-year-old son. He tried it, put it in his mouth and then spit it out and said that the flavour was really bad, was very sour and then his mom didn’t believe him. So she put another lolly in her mouth and she said the taste was terrible,” Lena said. “She had to wash her mouth three times and she still had the taste in her mouth.”
Lena said yesterday she tried to explain what had happened, but because the family did not speak English well, they did not understand at first the lollies were spiked with methamphetamine.
“They didn’t understand it was drugs, so it was actually just today when I spoke to the mother and explained to her, that’s the first time she knew that it was drugs. She was terrified. She was really shocked,” she said.
Detective Inspector Glenn Baldwin holds up a photo of the Rinda-branded, meth-laced lollies found in food parcels given to needy families. Photo / Alex Burton
Lena said other people may not be aware of the dangers due to English not being their first language.
“I assume that the Auckland City Mission probably tried to contact them, but people like my friend would not understand what’s being said to them or they wouldn’t even pick up the phone.”
She said there was another family from the Ukraine with several children who she helped to get their food parcel.
She was contacted by the Auckland City Mission and told not to consume the candies, and there was some kind of explanation. But again, because of the language, she didn’t understand that. Luckily, they didn’t have any in her parcel.
“I know in the past when I help them with food parcels, there are usually no lollies. I think it’s quite unusual.”
RNZ’s Checkpoint visited the family home on Wednesday afternoon with a translator and saw the lollies, which are now in a sealed plastic bag awaiting pick-up from police.
The Auckland City Mission has also called to do a welfare check.
