P FOR PASSION TO FIGHT DRUG

I wish we would put as much passion, energy, time and community
togetherness as we put into a Rugby World Cup campaign into helping close
down tinny houses, methamphetamine laboratories and street drug dealers. If
we could emulate that same crusading zeal, we would make a sizeable dent
in, if not totally cripple for some time to come, the work of the pedlars
of death, violence, mental illness and chemical dependency.

If only the same amount of passion, energy, time, money, legal power,
planning and research that goes into Waitangi Tribunal hearings could be
put into closing down tinny houses, methamphetamine labs and street drug
dealers. If we could just do that, then a high percentage of a generation
of children would not be lost to death, violence, mental illness and
chemical dependency.

Already, almost in a matter of months, the drug P is on its way to becoming
a problem among adolescents on the same scale as cannabis. Party packs
containing a mix of drugs, including P, along with recommendations on how
to use them for the best high are becoming available just as exams are
about to finish and school is out.

Throw alcohol in with the mix, which is bound to happen, and this summer
hundreds of our youngsters are going to put in jeopardy a lot of things to
which they might otherwise have been able to look forward and society will
wear many more social problems.

Government MPs John Tamihere and Dover Samuels have both recently issued a
challenge for Maori to stop burying their heads in the sand while abuse,
neglect, drug abuse and crime grows to endemic proportions.

They said that if there was no responsibility taken by political and
community leaders then "we are looking into an abyss of a dysfunctional
Maori nation".

"It is our tamariki who will pay the price if we do not act now."

It is ironic Maori might save their land and customary rights but, in the
process, by focusing so much time, energy and money on this alone, might
lose the future generation to which they would be aiming to pass stewardship.

The effects on our youngsters aside, the toxic and explosive risks from the
chemicals and process used in producing methamphetamine, and the
drug-associated burglaries and violence to which citizens are becoming
subjected yet managed to shake our complacency.

If the dealers, and gangs in particular, are not dealt with now with your
help and mine, a time will very soon come when the amount of money they
will have accumulated will mean they will be able to effectively
intimidate, silence, buy and influence to ensure they and their businesses
remain almost untouchable. And then what?