13 June 2011
Just days out from a Regional public education campaign on the risks posed by clandestine methamphetamine labs to people's properties Hamilton Police made a disturbing discovery early yesterday morning.
Sergeant Craig Singer said officers were initially called about an attack on an elderly woman's Hamilton East home shortly before 2am.
"A 70-year-old woman phone Police terrified after a fence post was thrown through her window. A Police dog began a track from outside her home to a nearby street and officers knocked on the door intending to investigate the attack.
"Three men answered the door, due to them smelling of cannabis a search under the Misuse of Drugs Act was carried out and a quantity of cannabis packaged for sale was found.
Mr Singer said further searching of the rented property, which smelt strongly of chemicals, resulted in the discovery of a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory packaged into a fish bin and stored in a wardrobe.
"As a result of this the three men, two women and three of our staff were bought back to the Hamilton Central Police Station requiring to be decontaminated.
"An Auckland based Clan Lab team spent the day at the property yesterday analysing the find which indicates methamphetamine had been manufactured at the address."
Mr Singer said the five people arrested at the property will appear in the Hamilton District Court today on a variety of drugs charges while two of the men also face wilful damage charges in relation to the attack on the elderly woman's home.
"Of concern to us was the close proximity of other homes to the offenders' address given the volatility of the manufacturing process.
"Hamilton residents will recall the destruction caused to a Forest Lake home last year after a clan lab ignited while Cambridge residents may recall the rural home destroyed on Victoria Rd in a similar incident. Neighbouring homes were only five metres from the offenders' house putting not only the meth cooks at risk but those people living next door."
Over this week's National Fieldays at Mystery Creek Waikato Police will be running seminars for the rural community on the increased risks to rural properties from methamphetamine manufacturing.
The campaign follows a trend over recent months of meth manufacturing moving to isolated rural locations with the resulting risks of not only fire and explosion but contamination of the environment from the disposal of waste materials.
On average for every kilogram of product manufactured in methamphetamine labs 7-10kgs of toxic waste materials are produced and often tipped into waterways, burned or buried in the ground.
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