Town urged to take P pledge

Featherston has been challenged to become the first town in Wairarapa to take a zero tolerance stance towards the killer drug P.

Southern Wairarapa Safer Community Council co-ordinator Tere Lenihan urged nearly 300 people at a meeting on Tuesday night to take a stand against methamphetamine, known as P in its pure form.

She told how her son, who used a variety of drugs, including P, committed suicide two years ago.

Mrs Lenihan said she felt it was important to share her family's experience to humanise the effects of P.

"To be informed is not enough, we have to be proactive in discouraging it," she said.

"Do you think we could work together as a community to become not only the gateway to the Wairarapa but to be the first community in Wairarapa to go zero tolerance ... to say we do not accept the use and abuse of P?"

Mrs Lenihan said another public meeting would be held in Featherston next Tuesday night to look at ways of working towards zero tolerance.

"We need to take up ownership of this problem," she said.

"That means if it's in your neighbourhood, not hiding behind the curtains and denying it exists."

The meeting will set up a zero tolerance working party and another "where to from here" working party that Mrs Lenihan said would aim to retain community unity after the Coral Burrows case. The meeting will link in with Wairarapa's Rise Above It anti-violence campaign.

"Featherston has shown it can do things - we don't want to lose that momentum, it is so special," she said.

- NZPA

Herald Feature: The P epidemic

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