Drug supplier nabbed in prison carpark | Northland News | Local News in Northland

A man who took tinnies of cannabis into the carpark of Ngawha Prison to "double his money" has been spared jail partly because of his poor health and addiction problems, despite 20 previous marijuana convictions.

Graham David Reeves, 49, sickness beneficiary from Ngawha, appeared for sentencing in the High Court at Whangarei after earlier pleading guilty to one charge of possessing cannabis for supply, one of possessing cannabis plant, and one each of possessing a pipe for smoking cannabis and equipment for smoking methamphetamine, or P.

Justice Rodney Hansen sentenced Reeves to nine months' home detention for the two cannabis possession charges and convicted and discharged him on the remaining two charges.

About 9.50am on November 28, 2008, Reeves drove to the visitors' centre at Ngawha Prison, 7km north-west of Kaikohe. He and his car were searched and 30 cannabis tinnies were found in a safe disguised as a dictionary in the car. A pipe for smoking cannabis and modified light bulb and glass tubing, used for smoking P, were also found.

He told police he was hard-up and wanted to sell the cannabis to double his money. Police later found a small amount of cannabis on him at a Kaikohe supermarket.

Yesterday, Justice Hansen said Reeves had 20 cannabis convictions going back 30 years, including one for dealing the drug in 1984. But he accepted that Reeves, who has a history of chronic back pain and other medical disorders, used cannabis and other drugs, to self medicate his pain, and the last cannabis conviction was in 2001.

He said Reeves' poor health, genuine remorse and addictions, which he was now trying to address, and the fact it was not part of wider dealing, made home detention appropriate.

The conviction comes after the Northern Advocate revealed that more than a fifth of Ngawha Prison inmates given drug tests have tested positive while locked up, a 25 per cent rise on the previous year.

Seventy-seven tests were positive for  cannabis, two for amphetamines, including methamphetamine or P, and two for benzodiazepines.

However, Corrections Association of NZ president Beven Hanlon said the problem of drugs in Ngawha was far bigger than what was being detected.

He   said prison visits were the main method of  taking drugs  into the prison and he believed searches carried out by the Corrections Department were inadequate to stop visitors  taking in drugs.

He said drugs were also smuggled in by people throwing them over fences, such as inside tennis balls, while others are brought in by prisoners on day release, such as working release.
 

The department was reducing the number of drug tests and searches  and was reducing the number of specialist drug search teams, Mr Hanlon said.

He said there was far more methamphetamine in jails than testing uncovers as the drug only stays in the system for 24 hours.

The Department of Corrections did not respond to Mr Hanlon's claims.