Drugs handed out in New Zealand food parcels in sweet wrappers
Eight families, including at least one child, have consumed the potntially lethal drug after mistaking them for sweets.
A charity working with homeless people in Auckland, New Zealand, has unknowingly distributed sweet filled with a potentially lethal dose of methamphetamines.
The sweets were found in food parcels after they were donated by a member of the public.
Auckland City Mission told reporters on Wednesday that staff had started to contact up to 400 people to track down parcels that could contain the sweets — which were solid blocks of methamphetamine enclosed in lolly wrappers.
Police have opened a criminal investigation.
The amount of methamphetamine in each sweet was up to 300 times the level someone would usually take and could be lethal, according to the New Zealand Drug Foundation — a drug checking and policy organisation, which first tested the sweets.
New Zealand Drug Foundation spokesman Ben Birks Ang said disguising drugs as innocuous goods was a common cross-border smuggling technique and more of the candies might have been distributed throughout New Zealand.
The sweets had a high street value of 1,000 New Zealand dollars (£472) per lolly, which suggested the donation by an unknown member of the public was accidental rather than a deliberate attack, Mr Birks Ang said.
Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson said eight families, including at least one child, had reported consuming the contaminated sweets since Tuesday.
No one was taken to hospital and Ms Robinson said the “revolting” taste meant most had immediately spat them out.
The charity’s food bank only accepts donations of commercially produced food in sealed packaging, she said.
The pineapple sweets, stamped with the label of Malaysian brand Rinda, “appeared as such when they were donated”, arriving in a retail-sized bag, she added.
Auckland City Mission was alerted on Tuesday by a food bank client who reported “funny-tasting” sweets. Staff tasted some of the remaining candies and immediately contacted the authorities.
They had been donated sometime in the past six weeks, Ms Robinson said.
It was not clear how many had been distributed in that time and how many were made of methamphetamine.
Some of those who had received the food parcels were clients of the charity’s addiction service and the news that drugs had been distributed had provoked distress.
“To say that we are devastated is an understatement,” Ms Robinson said, adding that the food bank — which distributes parcels five days a week — was closed on Wednesday.
