Students told to stay away from marijuana

Chimbu police’s Weeding Grass Unit commander Detective Yatefa Welis linked removing weed from food gardens to separating drug addicts from the community.
Welis told graduating grade 8 students at Umbanidiawa Primary School, in Kepai Blue Mountains of Sinasina-Yongumugl, Chimbu, to stay away from cultivating, trading and smoking marijuana and to concentrate on education to become useful citizens.
He said his unit was concentrating on removing marijuana by responding to tips to raid gardens and arrest marijuana growers, traders and consumers.
Welis said the number of arrests and marijuana found and destroyed were “quite substantial and in the value of millions of kina”.
“I do not want you to cut off your education to take up not only marijuana and homebrew liquors. Concentrate on your schooling and always put God first,” he said.
Ubanidiawa Primary School is a three-hour drive from Kundiawa town, covered in under the mist and fog of Kepai Blue Mountains.
Though lacking government services, the school’s head teacher, Jacob Wamil ,managed to get through the school year.