{"id":320533,"date":"2026-03-09T11:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/320533\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T11:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:05:10","slug":"weed-accidentally-donated-to-new-zealand-charity-shop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/320533\/","title":{"rendered":"Weed accidentally donated to New Zealand charity shop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) \u2014 Two teenagers mistakenly left a knapsack containing marijuana and cash at a donation area outside a <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/new-zealand\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Zealand<\/a> charity shop then returned in a panic to retrieve the bag, police said Monday.<\/p>\n<p>A volunteer at the store noticed a pungent aroma before opening the knapsack and finding plastic bags of marijuana amounting to 43.2 grams (1.5 ounces) and 3,700 New Zealand dollars ($2,200) in banknotes, New Zealand Police said in a statement. <\/p>\n<p>Using marijuana recreationally and selling the drug are illegal in New Zealand. Some medical use is allowed with a doctor\u2019s prescription.<\/p>\n<p>Police said the episode happened Feb. 18 in the Southland region of the South Island. A spokesperson wouldn\u2019t give more details of the shop\u2019s location to protect staff.<\/p>\n<p>The boy and girl had left the knapsack outside the shop as they waited for their vehicle to be serviced at a nearby workshop, the police statement said. Officers were called after the agitated teens returned to the store.<\/p>\n<p>Police found an air pistol \u2014 which those under 18 can\u2019t possess without a license and adult supervision \u2014 a police scanner and more cash in the teens\u2019 car. It\u2019s not illegal to have a police scanner in New Zealand, but distributing or acting on information heard is a crime. <\/p>\n<p>Police didn\u2019t divulge details about any charges the arrested teens faced or if they had appeared in a court.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand has strict rules about what can be reported from cases before the Youth Court, where cases of alleged offenders younger than 17 are usually heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) \u2014 Two teenagers mistakenly left a knapsack containing marijuana and cash at a donation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[138,3717,20371,18032,18590,111,43,139,69,18680,672,255],"class_list":["post-320533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-business","tag-general-news","tag-international-news","tag-law-enforcement","tag-marijuana","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oddities","tag-teens","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}