Police destroy 67,500 cannabis plants in March 2002 eradication push
Police destroyed about 67,500 cannabis plants across the Bay of Plenty, Northland and the central North Island in March 2002. The national eradication programme's coordinator said police expected to wipe out about 40 per cent of the national crop that season.
🇳🇿 Bay of Plenty, Northland and the central North Island · New Zealand
Police believed their 2002 eradication programme would wipe out about 40 per
cent of the national crop, its national coordinator Detective Senior Sergeant
Don Lee said.[1]Northland, the eastern Bay of Plenty and the Coromandel
were the biggest problem areas, though Waikato, Gisborne and other parts of
the Bay of Plenty had also yielded big crops of high-quality cannabis.[1]
Officers destroyed 35,000 plants in the Bay of Plenty and 19,500 in Northland
during March, plus 13,000 across Rotorua, Taupo and Tokoroa.[1]About 500
plants growing among maize and on Matakana Island in Tauranga Harbour were
seized, a shotgun was taken from a grower camped by his crop at Te Puke, and
a search of a Papamoa house found 50 plants growing under lights alongside
stolen computers and a mountain bike.[1]
In previous years police estimated they had wiped out about 40 per cent of
the crop by aerial spraying and uprooting, and with a month of the season
still left Lee expected the same figure again.[1]Growers were planting
smaller plots in bush clearings, and police said hydroponic setups were
expensive and carried serious consequences for growers who were caught.[1]
Case data
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