DON'T MUCK AROUND WITH P

Call it a pre-election year Budget bribe, call it a catchup package, call it
better late than never - the fact remains that the Government's announcement
of $39 million to help crack down on methamphetamine trafficking and
manufacture is good news, writes The Southland Times in an editorial.

Addiction to the meth-based drugs, of which the vile crystallised derivative
P, or pure, has quickly become the most high-profile, is potentially the
worst scourge our society has faced.

Scan the pages of this newspaper, or any news report for that matter, and
almost daily you'll find reference to a crime carried out in New Zealand by
someone under the influence of P.

It is an ugly and unpredictable drug that can play hell with a user's grip
on reality, inducing psychotic episodes from "bugging" - where users claw
out lumps of their own flesh trying to pick imaginary insects off their skin
- - to acts of extreme irrational violence.

Many of the most violent and senseless murders carried out in recent memory
have been committed by staunch young men whose brains are fried on P.
William Bell, the sadistic, psychopathic triple killer at the Mt
Wellington-Panmure RSA, and William Johansson, Joseph Samoa and Ese
Falealii, whose aggravated robbery spree resulted in the execution-style
shootings of pizza worker Marcus Doig and bank teller John Vaughan, were all
fuelled by P.

Its malignant tentacles have spread through all strata of society, catching
in its grasp anyone from south Auckland bad boys who steal to fund their
habits to company executives who can afford to pay $1000 a gram.

P is relatively easy to make, a fact graphically illustrated by the
increasing number of nickel-and-dime thefts of pseudoephedrine-based
pharmacy medicines which collectively form a key ingredient in the drug's
production. Labs can be small and mobile, easy to set up in a bedroom or
motel unit, enabling the cooks to travel light and move quickly to wherever
the fresh supply of ingredients is located.

Customs said last year methamphetamine laboratories were regarded by
criminals as a licence to print money, although cooking the drug is not the
cleanest operation. Some of the chemicals used in the process are extremely
volatile, unstable and toxic. Entire areas have been evacuated when illegal
P labs have been found.

It is not just a fashionable drug - P is an epidemic. Police have been
fighting a losing battle to hang on in its wake and have been further
weighed down by the inability of the Environmental Science and Research
agency to process the tests police need to bust meth labs.

Last week the High Court slammed ESR for "intolerable" delays of more than a
year in some cases caused by its work backlogs. The problem was clearly one
of resources: more money, more manpower, more surveillance and more research
were needed and the Government has delivered a satisfactory reponse.

Although more could always be done, quibbling about the timing of the
Government's four-year anti-P package is irrelevant. Any extra funding the
Government can commit to stamping out its use is money well spent.