Patrick Gower says a cannabis-infused dinner party he attended for his weed documentary was more proof that much of what he's seen overseas already exists illegally in New Zealand.
Newshub's National Correspondent attended the dinner while filming the third instalment of his On Weed series, which aired on Monday night on Three.
The event was hosted by a Kiwi who goes by the moniker Chef Budsworthy. He creates high-end and highly illegal dining experiences infused with a cannabis concentrate, finished with a dab of a potent weed extract.
Gower's meal - including a lavish course of lemon-poached prawns with puréed apple and blow-torched scallops - did not include any cannabis, but his fellow guests did consume it.
"I see it as part of our lifestyles," one told him. "We all work or study or we're parents, but as well as that we enjoy cannabis."
In the first two parts of the On Weed documentary series, Gower visited a cannabis tea party in California, US. The dinner party he attended in an unnamed part of New Zealand was the first time he'd come across anything remotely similar on our shores.
The event was one of several moments that showed the increasing scale and sophistication of New Zealand's illegal cannabis market.
On Weed also follows Gower as he meets the creators of New Zealand's most powerful cannabis product Diamonds, and as he meets with the other growers, manufacturers and dealers behind our illegal weed trade.
The journalist also comes clean to a group of schoolchildren about his first ever experience smoking cannabis, and explores just how large an influence gangs have on cannabis.
Missed the documentary? Watch it in full now on Three Now.
