 | Police find NZ's most potent pot |
 A jailed Northland cannabis grower who escaped forfeiture of his coastal property produced the most potent cannabis ever tested by the NZ Environmental Science and Research labs - up to 19% THC.
James Stuart Fisher and wife Mary Fisher used their four hectare Kerikeri property, known as Black Rocks Retreat on Inlet Rd, to grow cannabis in a sophisticated underground operation - growrooms hidden in buried water tanks connected to the house via a three metre long secret tunnel with a control panel for the lights and fans in the house!
The Solicitor-General had requested that the couples property be forfeited under the Proceeds of Crime legislation, but Justice Harrison ruled that would be too harsh - he said it would be "grossly disproportionate" to the gravity of the couple's offending.
Instead Mr Fisher was fined $75,000 and jailed for 2 and a half years. NORML say that that is "grossly disproportionate" to the gravity of Mr Fisher's offending.
 05/07/03 Police Nose Out Nz's Most Potent Pot
03/07/03 Lab Tests Finds New Zealand's Most Potent Pot
01/07/03 $75,000 Penalty Permits Drug Dealer To Keep Home
Police Nose Out Nz's Most Potent Pot
New Zealand Herald
The smell gave it away: strong wafts of marijuana that kept drifting past the noses of the police search team.
It seemed they had searched everywhere, but all they had found was enough dope for a few joints.
As they stood in the garden of the holiday retreat overlooking the Hauparua inlet near Kerikeri, they noticed the smell coming out of a vent, hidden beneath a flax bush, releasing air from an underground bunker.
Inside was the most potent marijuana ever tested in New Zealand.
This week, the High Court at Auckland was told scientists found the crop contained levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive ingredient of cannabis, of up to 19 per cent.
Environment Science and Research scientists said tests of hydroponically grown cannabis before 1997 showed the most potent was 8.8 per cent.
James Stuart Fisher and wife Mary Fisher used their 4ha property, known as Black Rocks Retreat on Inlet Rd, to grow cannabis in a sophisticated underground operation.
Fisher was a man with a yen for scientific invention. He had introduced ingenious methods of spearing snapper to preserve it for export and of packaging oysters for the Southeast Asian market. He had spent three years perfecting his crop, and knew it was "damn fine pot", growing in tunnels and water tanks buried under his landscaped garden.
Fisher would enter through a 3m-long tunnel to tend his crop. Nicely plastered and painted, it ran to the first of two 25,000 litre reinforced concrete water tanks that contained the hydroponic operation. This tank held a partitioned area for his three "mother plants".
In a separate area Fisher would do his cloning; clipping buds off the three female plants that produce the best "heads", rubbing them with hormone powder, then growing them in small bags to save time germinating seeds.
A cabinet held his knives, fertiliser and thermometers. Another tunnel led to a second tank, the entire bunker plumbed for water and wired back to a panel on the dining room wall that controlled its lights and fans.
In Fisher's growing areas, there were four banks of fourteen plants planted in plastic bags of potting mix.
He had devised a staggered growing system that police said allowed up to 12 harvests a year, the plants growing healthily to no more than 2 1/2ft tall. There had been flops - bugs destroyed his first crop - but Fisher started producing a very strong strain of the drug.
Stashed in scrub nearby was a bucket of 2lb of the finished product, plucked and graded dried heads that even police called "primo". It stuck together like a big cake when tipped out due to its high oil content.
The ESR tests of 22 random samples taken from the bucket contained levels of between 12 and 19 per cent THC.
Police said the bust showed the increasing sophistication of cannabis growing in indoor or buried plots to escape surveillance. Last year, police dealt with 21,034 cannabis offences - a slight decrease on previous years, but methamphetamine offences increased.
"I've worked in Kaikohe for 10 years and cannabis is a day-to-day thing for us," said the officer in charge, Detective Sergeant Russell Price. "But this was the best stuff I've seen."
This week, Mary Fisher said: "It was good, there's no doubt about it. It was damn fine pot but I would not call it the best ever found."
Mary Fisher was sentenced to two years' supervision after the couple admitted police charges. James Stuart Fisher has just begun a two-year, nine-month jail term on the Tongariro/Rangipo prison farm.
The test results were revealed this week after a High Court ruling in which the couple escaped forfeiting their property under Proceeds of Crime Legislation and were ordered to pay $75,000 instead.
Mary Fisher said her husband was surprised, rather than proud, on hearing of his crop's potency. She said it was just his hobby. Although he admitted selling it on to one person police said he could have made much more.
"My husband's a professional, a perfectionist. When he gets into something he dissects it until he knows it inside out. That's all he did here. He wasn't trying to be King Cannabis or anything."
|
|
|
|
| |
| Login |
|
You can register for some special extra features. | |
| Article Rating |
Average Score: 4.27
Votes: 18
| |
|
