NZ CHASING US-SIZED HABIT

New Zealand's hard drug problem is on track to be as bad as the United
States', says our top drug intelligence policeman.

One of the key fronts in stopping that growth is controlling the
"precursor" substances needed to make the class-A drugs speed and P, says
the head of the national drug intelligence bureau, Detective Inspector Gary
Knowles.

The supply chain starts with "shoppers" - criminals who risk jail to buy
packet-loads of seemingly harmless cold and flu tablets.

The trail ends with a cycle of violent crime as speed-fuelled criminals
rob, and sometimes kill, for cash to feed their cravings.

The shoppers earn a living from buying Sudafed, Actifed, Robitussin and
other cold and flu products that contain the speed ingredients ephedrine or
pseudoephedrine.

A crew working together might cruise the North Island visiting pharmacies.
They might have a list of shop assistants known to be "soft" on writing
down details of suspicious customers.

But as a growing number of pharmacists check licence-plate details and tell
police of dodgy purchases, shoppers have turned to the internet.

Each packet of flu pills they buy for $14 can be sold to a cook for $100.

The cook is usually employed by a gang.

His tools are the flu pills, glassware, stolen chemicals such as
hydrochloric acid, and a heat source.

The result is either a lucrative drug or a large explosion.

If successful, the cook will still have to dispose of litres of dangerous
chemicals and deal with strong fumes than can gradually drive him mad.

Police have told the Herald of a deluded cook who attacked a tree outside
his house and another who tried to "kill" an inanimate object with a shotgun.

The methamphetamine which is made by the cooks is then passed on to
gang-linked suppliers until it arrives on the street, usually in a pure
form called P that sells at $1000 a gram.

The number of people who smoke P is unknown, but the 2001 National Drug
Survey found that 5 per cent of New Zealanders aged between 15 and 45 had
used an illegal stimulant such as methamphetamine in the previous year.

The number of cooks busted by police rose from nine in 2000 to 147 last
year, and could double this year, Mr Knowles says.

Speed was a factor in the Ese Falealii killing spree, and, just last
Sunday, the drive-by shooting in which at least 10 bullets were fired into
a Petone shop.

Mr Knowles said a visiting expert warned two years ago that New Zealand
could expect to see "bizarre, violent crimes" and more celebrities being
busted for possessing hard drugs.

He said we were now seeing examples of that.