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Zealand — A charity working with homeless people in Auckland, New Zealand unknowingly distributed candies filled with a potentially lethal dose of methamphetamine in its food parcels after the sweets were donated by a member of the public.
Auckland City Mission on Wednesday said 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 candy wrappers. Three people were treated in hospital after consuming them, New Zealand authorities said, but were later discharged.
The amount of methamphetamine in each candy 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 organization, which first tested the candies.
Ben Birks Ang, a Foundation spokesperson, 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.
