WHY THE WAR CAN'T BE WON

There was no such thing as a drug problem when John McKoy joined the
police force 36 years ago. There was no drug squad, no street dealers
and parents didn't worry that their children would become junkies.

McKoy was a pencil-thin amateur jockey with 15 wins, who first thought
of becoming a policeman while he was working in an Albury stock
business. His best friend was studying law, but the young McKoy lacked
the qualifications. So he took a different path. Instead of law, he
chose order.

In 1989, he was appointed to the drug squad as a detective inspector.
Back then heroin was not a big problem. "An ounce of heroin in those
days was a big pinch," McKoy remembers.

Instead, in the early '90s the squad targeted syndicates that
cultivated outdoor marijuana plantations and ran clandestine
amphetamine laboratories. Melbourne, says McKoy, was the amphetamines
capital of Australia. Under McKoy, police broke up the biggest speed
cartel in Victoria, run by John Higgs. "We arrested more than 130
people and raided more than a dozen labs. That broke the back of the
industry in this state. Street purity has dropped from 20 per cent to
3 per cent."

Yet, ironically, police efforts against marijuana trafficking had an
adverse effect. The focus on outdoor marijuana plantations forced the
industry indoors and into hydroponic crops. As a result, the THC
content of marijuana has jumped, and the introduction of the more
potent "skunk" variety has led to greater reported health problems for
habitual users.

While the drug squad focused on amphetamines and cannabis, the heroin
trade was changing. "In the early '90s, the heroin was largely
supplied by cartels controlled by Romanian criminals," McKoy
remembers. "Their heroin was supplied from Sydney and was about 20per
cent pure when it hit the street. Then Asian syndicates came into the
market offering purer heroin at nearly half the price."

Many of the syndicates have budgets bigger than the drug squad, McKoy
says, and are proving hard to infiltrate. "We are part of a world market."

McKoy is a conservative, career policeman. He is a law-and-order man
who wants more police and tougher court sentences. But he is also a
measured speaker who doesn't always take the orthodox police stance.
He is prepared to explore alternative views. After more than 11 years
in the drug squad, he knows the heroin problem can't be beaten by "get
tough" tactics.

He thinks heroin should be prescribed for long-term addicts and that
the experiment of one supervised injecting house in Melbourne should
go ahead.

"This goes against my training, upbringing and beliefs, but I believe
we have to look at these alternatives. The results we have achieved in
arresting alleged drug traffickers has already outstripped the
capabilities of the criminal justice system to keep pace. The courts
can't keep up and the prisons can't deal with the problem. If we had
another 200 full-time drug investigators, we could use them, but the
system couldn't cope. We must look at alternative strategies. The
majority of people in jail are there on drug-related offences."

Long before the heroin issue became a huge social problem, McKoy could
see the storm clouds. He foresaw an epidemic when many, inside and
outside the force, thought it was still manageable.

Now, as McKoy retires from the force, he is urging authorities to look
for new approaches to heroin use, and to not expect police to protect
society from itself.

On Thursday more than 130 people attended McKoy's retirement lunch -
from knockabout former coppers from his days at St Kilda station in
the late '60s and early '70s to deputy commissioners who praised his
dedication and courage.

McKoy has never been afraid to make a decision, or express an opinion.
It is a characteristic that can make friends, but offend others who
would prefer not to face unpalatable facts. For years he fought for
more resources for the drug squad, but found it increasingly hard to
find the staff.

This wasn't the only frustration of his work. The stress on
investigators, particularly undercover police, can be shattering. "I
know of at least three UCs (undercover police) who suffered badly
years after their last jobs because of what they have been through,"
McKoy says. Few people realise that undercover police are often forced
to make life-and-death decisions in a second. "It is an area of
policing that is fraught with the most extreme danger."

In one investigation controlled by McKoy, for example, an undercover
operative masqueraded as a Perth amphetamines trafficker who wanted to
buy two kilograms of speed from a Melbourne syndicate. It was only
during the operation that police learnt that the gang included a
violent gunman on parole for murder and another man convicted of
manslaughter.

It took the undercover policeman seven meetings to gather sufficient
evidence against the amphetamines suppliers. On the final day the
Special Operations Group had to wait for a signal from their inside
man before they could raid the Coburg home in which the final meeting
was taking place.

As the signal was given one of the suspects, a known killer, picked up
an imitation submachinegun water pistol and started squirting people
in the room. The undercover knew that if the Special Operations Group
entered the room the man with the imitation gun could be dead in
seconds. "The UC (undercover) pretended to be furious and deliberately
overreacted," McKoy recalls. "The offender put the water pistol down,
just as the SOG stormed in. I think that criminal is alive today
because of that undercover's ability to think quickly under extreme
pressure."

In another major operation, an undercover policeman was used to
infiltrate a Victorian-South Australian syndicate trafficking in
cocaine, amphetamines and marijuana. Police monitored more than 3000
phone calls before mounting a sting operation.

Usually, undercover detectives talk big to impress but provide little
of substance to the criminals. The art is to look rich, promise big
amounts of money to the dealers but to gather the evidence before
risking large amounts of government cash.

In this case police wanted to arrest the head of a syndicate that had
been operating for years. To establish his credibility the undercover
detective had to buy $40,000 of cannabis and cocaine. McKoy believed
that to get to the top of the cartel the police needed a huge amount
of cash as a lure.

The syndicate heads were prepared to sell the undercover a massive 20
kilos of amphetamines and 20 kilos of cannabis, but would only deal if
they saw the money. Senior police agreed to provide $1,065,000 show
money for the operation. But they gave the drug squad a message: if
the money was lost, don't bother coming back to the office.

Police took the cash to Mildura, but when they asked a bank to keep it
overnight the manager refused, saying his insurance would not cover
the sum. So members of the Special Operations Group sat up all night
in a motel room guarding the cash until it was time to move. The
operation led to the syndicate leaders in Victoria and South Australia
being charged and convicted; the main offender also got hit with a
$460,000 back tax bill.

McKoy loved his time in the drug squad - it was a dirty business but
the most satisfying time in his police career. However, there can be a
downside to working in the mud. Sometimes it sticks.

McKoy relates how in the early '90s he slipped up to North
Queensland's Magnetic Island for a holiday. He had a close friend who
ran a resort there. It could have been the perfect getaway, but things
turned out differently.

Another man from Melbourne, Joe Reading, had moved up there to get
away from it all. Reading ran a laundry business on the island but was
involved in the amphetamines trade in Victoria.

McKoy remembers: "I didn't know of Joey then and my mate introduced me
to him in a hotel. I had a beer with him, he was very friendly and
gregarious."

Much later, when they were both back in Melbourne, Reading was charged
with drug trafficking. His wife was seriously ill at Magnetic Island
and he asked McKoy if he could get bail to return to care for her. "I
spoke to my detectives and they had no problem." Reading was later
bailed.

But, McKoy says, the drug suspect liked to make up stories and while
showing a young Melbourne policeman the local sights he popped in to
see the Magnetic Island police to report on bail.

Reading couldn't help himself. He started bragging to the local police
that the policeman in the car out front was his great friend, John
McKoy.

That day McKoy was 3000 kilometres away in his office, struggling
through a Melbourne winter and a pile of paperwork. But the whispers
began: the long-serving drug squad boss was bent. "There was a full
investigation and all allegations were proven false. The young
policeman in the car confirmed it was him, but I was still the victim
of some hurtful gossip."

When Reading went to court, his lawyers subpoenaed drug squad
documents. The police fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep
the documents but lost.

A short time later police raided the home of a drug dealer, Peter
Pilarinos, and found on the kitchen table copies of the documents
relating to him. Pilarinos said that Reading had paid a senior
policeman in the drug squad $70,000 for the material. Even though the
documents had been stamped with court numbers, proving they had been
released officially, the drug dealer's claim kept the rumors about
McKoy alive.

"There is no doubt the tongues were wagging. It had a dreadful impact.
We were involved in some investigations with other forces and some
were concerned about me and whether I could be trusted."

Some of the allegations were repeated on television, causing McKoy and
his family further pain. "My wife said: `How can I go to work tomorrow
after that?' I couldn't answer her."

McKoy was investigated by the internal Ethical Standards Department
over the Magnetic Island trip and the court documents and exonerated.
Chief Commissioner Neil Comrie rang his counterparts around the
country to vouch for McKoy's integrity.

Then there was the now-infamous Christmas burglary at the drug squad
in 1996-97. Files were taken from the investigation into amphetamines
boss, John Higgs. The theft of the files seriously compromised the
safety of a secret informer, known as E2/92, whose evidence would be
critical to the case against Higgs. The theft also created a severe
moral problem within the drug squad.

"It tore into the heart of the drug squad," says McKoy. "I have no
idea who did it, although I know it was none of the investigators
involved in the case. It had to be someone with knowledge of where the
brief (of evidence) was.

"I wonder what would have happened if someone had walked in during the
burglary. There would have been an ambush. I shudder to think what the
repercussions would have been. I still believe that one day we will
find the answer to who did it."

McKoy knows that with the money drug syndicates have, police
corruption is a big problem. He thinks police found to have taken
bribes deserve severe jail terms, but so do the people offering bribes.

At 55, McKoy could continue in the drug squad, but he's had enough. "I
feel I have gone from being the leader of a dynamic, dedicated squad
to a book-keeper. So much of modern policing is about ... completing
correspondence on minor matters. I know there would not be an
operational officer who would disagree with me."