Pubdate: Fri, 25 Nov 2005
Source: Courier-Mail, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2005 Queensland Newspapers
Contact: http://thecouriermail.com.au/extras/forms/letter.htm
Website: http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/98
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/areas/Australia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

GIRL PUSHERS 'WORK SCHOOLIES'

GOLD Coast police are investigating reports that girls are being used
to sell drugs to 'Schoolies' at Surfers Paradise.

The Herald-Sun has reported that school leavers said young female
pushers were working the main beach each night, offering ecstasy to
the mostly under-age crowd for $35 a tablet.

But police say they have not encountered the young female dealers, and
point to "thousands" of bag searches in the Cavill Avenue schoolies
precinct, which have so far turned up only small amounts of ecstasy or
marijuana.

Gold Coast police have used drug sniffer-dogs as part of random drug
searches conducted throughout the week.

"They are not finding any drugs," a police spokeswoman said, adding
that there had not been any large drug busts during schoolies 2005.
The only exception has been a man caught with 22 tablets on Thursday
night.

But social worker Dominic Mapstone, who runs the website
schoolies.org.au, has said that he is not surprised by reports of drug
dealing during schoolies' week.

"Drugs are easier to get than alcohol if you are at the Gold Coast for
schoolies, you will be offered drugs," said Mr Mapstone.

Mapstone, who has travelled to the Gold Coast each year for twenty
years for the festival, says that outside the heavily-policed Cavill
Avenue precinct is where most illegal activity takes place.

"They've got everything on offer, ecstacy and marijuana are easier to
use for the casual drug user, but people are offered shots of heroin,
speed, sometimes in the barrel of the needle ready to go. It is worse
than (Sydney's) King's Cross".

Gold Coast police say that with the last weekend of the Queensland
schoolies festival coming up, arrests of school-leavers have been well
down compared to the adult population.

Police also say that they have confiscated only nine fake ID cards in
a sweep co-ordinated with licenced venues, compared to 700 for the
same period in 2004.

So far, 65 school leavers have been arrested, most for public
intoxication and disorderly behaviour. By comparison, arrests amongst
non-schoolies have topped 150 so far.

But could a decline in alcohol-related arrests be due to a shift
amongst school leavers turning from alcohol to drugs?

School-leavers are being praised for their behaviour this year, but
reports of drug-dealing in Surfers' Paradise nightclubs have worried
some.

The Herald-Sun reported that a group of six boys it spoke to from
Wangaratta confirmed that ecstasy was rife in the schoolies hotspot.

"I went into the toilet at a club on Wednesday night, and a guy was
even selling it there," said one of the group, a 17-year-old who has
been using his older brother's ID to gain entry into nightclubs over
the past week.

An 18-year-old Brisbane teenager, who police said was not a schoolie,
was arrested on the main nightclub strip early yesterday with 22
ecstasy tablets.

A group of four teenagers were arrested while smoking marijuana in a
small van. "It was reminiscent of a Cheech and Chong movie," Gold
Coast Superintendent Brett Pointing said about the marijuana smell
coming from the van.

Next week, New South Wales school-leavers arrive at units, motels and
hotels all along the Gold Coast as the festival enters its second week.

Police say that the nature of the event changes with larger numbers of
18 year olds coming from southern states, as activity increases in
licensed venues, rather than in public spaces and on beaches.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake