The Fiji Police Force will engage more chemistry drug analysts to strengthen its forensics department.
In a media statement, police said six new drug analysts were being trained to join the forensics department, which only has one fully accredited and certified cannabis identifier.
“The six officers are being trained by senior scientists from the New Zealand Institute of Environment Scientific and Research (ESR NZ) at the Fiji Police Chemistry laboratory at Nasova this week,” police said yesterday.
“The facilitators of this course are ESR trainers namely Cameron Johnson (Science leader, Forensic Drug Chemistry), Laura Fabian (senior Scientist, Forensic Drug Chemistry) and Anna Petricevich (Forensic Quality manager).
“The new drug analysts had undergone training on some of the course models online due to COVID restrictions in 2020 and 2021.
“At the end of their current training, the analyst’s will become fully accredited and certified cannabis identifiers.”
Police said the visiting New Zealand officials met with the deputy Commissioner of Police Itendra Nair earlier in the week where he relayed Police Commissioner Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho’s appreciation on raising the organisation’s capabilities in fighting the war on drugs.
