KEY POINTS:
A woman parked alone in a car alongside a cemetery late at night told police she was preparing to smoke P in a bid to shed weight, the Tauranga District Court was told yesterday.
Maree Alice Ginders, a 40-year-old beneficiary, pleaded guilty before Judge Thomas Ingram to one charge of possessing methamphetamine and one of possessing utensils used for the drug.
The prosecutor, Sergeant Wayne Hunter, said police found the single mother at 11pm on June 27 outside Tauranga's old 17th Ave/Devonport Rd burial ground.
She told them she had started smoking P only that week "due to pressure to lose weight".
Ginders had a pipe made from a modified light bulb. It was loaded with methamphetamine and had been used previously for smoking the drug.
In her handbag were two similar pipes and several more straws. A freshly smoked cannabis cigarette was on the car's centre console, Mr Hunter said.
Ginders claimed to have bought the P from her supplier that evening for $200. There was enough for several uses.
Lawyer Glenn Barnett said the defendant, who still suffered pain from a medical procedure in the mid 1990s, was on a current methadone programme.
Ten years had passed since her last drug offending.
Ginders was fined $150 for possessing methamphetamine. On the utensils charge she was convicted and ordered to come up for sentencing if called upon within 12 months.
NZPA
