National Criminal Investigation Group
Police National Headquarters, 180 Molesworth Street,
PO Box 3017, Wellington
Phone +64 4 474 9499 Fax +64 4 499 2152
28 May 2019
P Kel y
PO Box 24447,
Manners Street,
Wel ington
Dear P Kelly,
I refer to your Official Information Act request of 12 February 2019, received by Police via email
where you request “Please provide information about each time herbicides or other agents have been
used to disrupt cannabis growing since 2017. This includes where another Government agency was
involved but Police hold information about it.
Specific locations are not requested. Instead, for each occurrence, please provide the name of the
agency with responsibility (e.g. NZ Police), the date, the chemical used, the quantity used, the
approximate land area covered in m2, the territorial authority or other broad area indicator, and the
basis of the legal authority for the action (e.g. warrant). If providing specific date information is
operationally risky, it is OK to just provide the year.
Police don’t have any information regarding any other Government agency using herbicides
or other agents to disrupt cannabis growing. Police do not keep information in detail about
each time herbicides have been used to disrupt cannabis growing to the detail you have
requested eg, date, quantity used and land area covered, therefore that part of your request
is refused pursuant to section 18(g) Official Information Act 1982 because the information
does not exist.
In relation to the chemical used, Police use Agpro Biosafe, Agpro Glyphosate and Agpro Blue
Dye.
The search powers used are those provided by the Search and Surveil ance Act 2012 and
are based on location type and what is found.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to review my decision if you are not satisfied with the way I
have responded to your request.
Yours Sincerely
Scott McGILL
Detective Senior Sergeant
Special Programmes
Police National Headquarters
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