STOP METHING AROUND

The quickening pulse of methamphetamine abuse in New Zealand has become so
alarming that Opposition parties have, at very least, raised a case for the
Government to answer about the adequacy of its reactions to date, writes The
Southland Times in an editorial.

The increasing fashionability of the genre of drugs such as P (Pure) and its
variants has led to a crackdown, announced in May. Their classification was
elevated to the most serious category, class A, and restrictions were put on
the legitimately available ephedrine products that can be used as ingredients
for the illicit laboratories.

Add to that the announcement of a designated methamphetamine response team, and
increasing public warning and educational efforts, and the Government reaction
seems anything but insubstantial.

The question is whether this is a Government that puts the P in procrastination
or an Opposition that puts the P in panic.

For its part, the Opposition does not lack ammunition. Act MP Muriel Newman
makes her case like this: drug crime, aside from cannabis, has risen 63 percent
since Labour was elected. Police asked for 169 extra officers, Labour gave them
50, deployed 35 to the Solomons and budgeted a methamphetamine response of two
five-man teams starting work in six months.

National's police spokesman Tony Ryall highlights that though police have
busted 94 meth labs this year, in not one case were assets confiscated from
drug dealers under the Proceeds of Crimes Act.

The sticking point has been the requirement to prove that the drug dealers'
assets are the result of illegal proceeds. National would switch the burden of
proof to the convicted dealer. That would undermine one of the most important
elements of our judicial system - innocent until proven guilty - and so the
urgency of this particular problem cannot be allowed to impel any such change
with indecent haste or lack of scrutiny.

The Government's package of measures, though substantial, is increasingly
looking insufficient given the swiftness with which the problem is developing.

A United Nations finding classes New Zealand a world leader in methamphetamine
abuse.

The Customs Department reports a huge increase in seizures of imported tablets,
as people, partly in response to the crackdown in pharmacies, take to ordering
them over the internet instead.

Two years ago 32,600 tablets were seized. This year the figure is expected to
be 1 million and the department believes this is only one-fifth of total
illicit shipments coming in, though the ability to prosecute importers has been
seriously compromised by the difficulty of proving possession of the pills in
intercepted orders. The Government plans to give police greater powers of
search and arrest in this area before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the social damage is striking. Users of this drug become prone to
violent, even psychotic, behaviour - RSA triple killer Stephen Bell,
double-killing robber Ese Falealii and sword attacker Antonie Dixon all
tripping on methamphetamine when they committed their crimes.

This issue has seized public attention, as it deserves. The Government must
answer the suspicion that police remain too thinly stretched and hampered by
inappropriate prioritisations such as revenue-collecting traffic fines.