Police target shoppers in drug blitz

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Police target shoppers in drug blitz

 

Tanya Westthorp | 12:01am May 19, 2012

 

SHOPPERS are being targeted by Tweed police as part of a new range of operations to rid the region of its drug problem.

 

Since the start of the year, plain-clothed police have been randomly targeting drug dealing hot spots, including bus shelters and major shopping centres, with the help of a drug detection dog.

 

Police have charged more than 50 people with drug possession and searched hundreds more -- many of whom told police they had used drugs that day.

 

On Thursday, dozens of shoppers were searched after police dog Doug picked up the smell of cannabis.

 

Police officers then swooped on the suspects who told them they were not in possession of drugs but had smoked a breakfast bong or joint.

 

"A lot of those people searched told us they had been in recent contact with prohibited drugs," said Tweed Proactive Crime Team Sergeant Grant Erickson.

 

Among those verbally warned was a boy, 15, shopping with his father and a mother pushing her baby around in a trolley.

 

A Tweed Heads man, 19, was given his second cannabis caution after he was found sitting at a bus stop with a gram of the drug in his pocket. If he gets a third gets he will face court.

 

Local lawyer Nick Harrison said an admission to using drugs was legally evidence enough for police to serve cannabis caution notices.

 

However, Tweed police only issued caution notices to those caught with drugs on them.

"There is an offence under the Drug and Misuse Trafficking Act, 1985, where people can be charged with the self-administration of a prohibited drug, even when it is no longer in their possession," Sgt Erickson said.

 

"But we have to look at those incidents on merit and decide if it's in the public interest and there is enough evidence to go before the courts.

 

"At the end of the day, we want to target those involved in property offences and people making a commercial gain out of the supply of prohibited drugs."

 

Sgt Erickson said police had been pleased with the success of the five-month operation.

 

"Since we started, it has had a massive effect on the activities of drug suppliers," he said.

 

"We've displaced them, they are now scattered away from here, operating more covertly than overtly. But greed will always win and they will come unstuck."

 

 

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2012/05/19/417061_crime-and-court-news.html