{"id":603214,"date":"2026-09-17T12:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T12:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/603214\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T12:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T12:42:10","slug":"papamoa-man-used-21-different-controlled-drugs-after-going-hard-at-the-gym","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/603214\/","title":{"rendered":"P\u0101p\u0101moa man used 21 different controlled drugs after going \u2018hard\u2019 at the gym"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the summary, PEDs are illegally traded in New Zealand, commonly between like-minded people within the fitness or body-building community<\/a>, often to assist in mass muscle growth, and can be taken in a variety of forms, including orally as a tablet or as a solution which can be injected.<\/p>\n

The 21 drugs<\/a> the man had in his possession included liquid vials, tablets and sprays.<\/p>\n

At a hearing this week in the Tauranga District Court, Judge Jo Rielly questioned defence lawyer Rita Nabney about whether the police agreed they were all for personal use, noting there were \u201ca lot of different drugs\u201d and some were for female infertility.<\/p>\n

Nabney said she understood the drugs were all for his personal use.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe works out at a gym and he mixes up different drugs to help him in recovery for his gym work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Given the man had now pleaded guilty, she was asking for the man to be sentenced to a fine.<\/p>\n

However, police prosecutor Tina Smallman said there had been no indication sentencing would be sought that day and police would need more time to prepare submissions on the appropriate outcome.<\/p>\n

According to the summary, police were seeking forfeiture of cash recovered from the address and Smallman said she needed to ascertain further details about that.<\/p>\n

However, Nabney hadn\u2019t been aware that police were seeking that, having understood police to have taken money from \u201cchildren\u2019s money boxes\u201d and \u201ccash out of his wife\u2019s handbag\u201d, and she didn\u2019t think there would be grounds for forfeiture.<\/p>\n

Nabney explained that the search warrant came about as a person known to her client had been investigated for \u201cimporting drugs\u201d and had used her client\u2019s address, which prompted the search.<\/p>\n

However, the charges that had arisen for her client only related to personal possession, as opposed to importation.<\/p>\n

Nabney pointed to a medical certificate that related to recovery from a surgery and said he had been using the drugs in his recovery and that he \u201cworks out at the gym hard\u201d.<\/p>\n

The judge repeated that there were \u201ca lot of drugs listed\u201d in the summary and given the police had not been expecting a request for sentencing, it was fair to adjourn to a later date.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also think they need to make it clear to you whether they\u2019re seeking forfeiture of cash,\u201d she said, noting there were no allegations he was dealing, so there \u201cmay not be grounds\u201d for forfeiture.<\/p>\n

The summary of facts stated there were different quantities of cash, both in New Zealand dollars and foreign currency, located in the safe in the main bedroom of the house.<\/p>\n

Nabney sought interim name suppression to continue until sentencing, so that she had time to apply for permanent suppression.<\/p>\n

She said the man\u2019s business might be impacted if his name were to be published.<\/p>\n

The judge granted interim suppression but said evidence and submissions in support of the order being made permanent would need to be provided before sentencing, which will take place in February next year.<\/p>\n

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.<\/p>\n

Join the NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to the summary, PEDs are illegally traded in New Zealand, commonly between like-minded people within the fitness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[652,74,1975,19757,50641,9828,14647,1757,42764,22220,14744,6098,5838,1345,5158,16122,13110,111,43,139,69,28243,675,23282,1881,1361,223,2846,13797,102,15146,6730],"class_list":["post-603214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-652","tag-after","tag-at","tag-cocktail","tag-controlled","tag-different","tag-discovered","tag-drugs","tag-explanation","tag-going","tag-gym","tag-hard","tag-help","tag-home","tag-man","tag-mans","tag-mix","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offered","tag-police","tag-ppmoa","tag-recovery","tag-that","tag-the","tag-them","tag-used","tag-with","tag-works","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603214","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=603214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}