ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE

With nationwide paranoia about the rise in the use of so-called party drugs
skyrocketing, Don Kavanagh checked out what's available on the streets of
Manawatu.

If recent surveys and news reports are anything to go by, the country is
awash with illegal stimulants.

Ecstasy, methamphetamine (speed) and its purer form, ice or pure, are, we're
told, being consumed by young people in vast quantities.

According to two surveys carried out by Public Health Research Unit at
Auckland University in 1998 and 2001, the use of these party drugs is
spreading alarmingly.

Use of speed has doubled between 1998 and 2001, while ecstasy use has also
doubled and ice use has increased tenfold in the same period.

However, these figures may be misleading.

If only a small number of people are using the drugs in the first place, it
doesn't need many additional users to significantly boost the user figures.

Tim Moffat of Palmerston North's organised crime unit (OCU) says that while
the incidence of methamphetamine is showing a worrying increase in the
region, party drugs are pretty few and far between.

"We have all the drugs we've always had here and certainly, methamphetamines
are raising their heads in significant amounts," he says.

"We are not getting big seizures of the drug, but we are getting a lot more
people caught in possession of it, and that has certainly increased in the
last year. We are also getting a lot of precursor substances, like
ephedrine, which is used in the production of meth.

"Drugs like fantasy and ecstasy I don't have a lot of personal experience
of. That's not to say they aren't here, but we don't have the same dance
culture here as they do in Wellington and Auckland."

Speed is highly addictive and as far as police are concerned, its effects
can be downright scary.

"I've spoken to undercover agents about it, and they all say there is a
significant attitude adjustment with users."

The drug can make users paranoid and aggressive and long-term use can lead
to mental health problems.

Nationally, much of the cannabis and methamphetamine traffic is conducted by
gangs, some of whom have begun working in tandem to carve up the country
into business areas.

The profits are huge.

While it's not cheap to produce either drug, speed can command from $100 to
$800 a gram, depending on quality. Even then, the price has halved in the
past two years as more meth hit the streets, according to police figures.

While speed might be becoming more widespread, the old favourites haven't
gone away.

One senior police officer says cannabis will be around "as long as a human
being walks this earth" and recent local hauls have netted amounts of the
drug with a street value of $80,000 in one case and $40,000 in another.

Mr Moffat says the region also seems to have a higher than average incidence
of morphine sulphate abuse.

Morphine sulphate is use to make "homebake", a form of heroin. After having
quite a heroin problem some years ago, police are finding more and more
cases of homebake cropping up.

"It seems to be getting more accessible, especially with a lot of
codeine-based products available over the counter. There's a lot of money in
it. just look at Malcolm Smith and all the money he made."

Smith was the Palmerston North pharacist who was jailed for 12 years in
March 2000 for supplying morphine sulphate. It emerged during his trial that
police were trying to account for $700,000 in unexplained income.

The jailing of Smith was a success for the police, but it brought its own
problems. Other dealers moved in to fill the vacuum he left.

It's an interesting experiment to go out and try to find drugs on the
streets.

A visit to a couple of city centre pubs, a word in the right ear and 20
minutes and a short walk later, the Manawatu Evening Standard was in a
position to purchase tabs of ecstasy, acid, the ubiquitous cannabis and
methamphetamine. At this stage, in the finest traditions of journalism, we
made our excuses and left.

It really is that easy.

Talking to the man who offered the drugs for sale (who, understandably, did
not wish to be named), it was something of a surprise to find hat he was not
a gang member, or hoon, but an average citizen with an average job, living
in an average home.

"It's just a bit of a sideline, really," he said.

"You do a bit here and there, sell a bit and take the money. I don't think
about whether it's right or wrong, it's just a few extra bucks at the end of
the day."

The man said he was not a regular user, but he had "dabbled" in a variety of
illegal substances over the years. Ecstasy was his drug of choice at the
moment.

"It's not hard or anything and it's not the sort of thing that makes you out
of control, like speed. I've seen some guys in bars around town and they're
just completely amped up and ready to go off. You tend to avoid those guys."

The prices are reasonable, by the standards of the streets. A tab of ecstasy
will set you back $60, while acid tabs go for $35 each. A cap of hash oil is
on offer for $20 ("It's pretty good stuff", apparently) and he can get you
meth for around $80-$90 for one tenth of a gram.

You buy a bit, you sell a bit, you keep it moving around. It's the free
market ideal at its zenith, with supply and demand determining price.

It's also a pernicious scourge, according to Drug Arm co-ordinator and
Palmerston North city councillor Lew Findlay.

"P (pure) is reaching epidemic proportions in this city," he says.

"There's a new dealer in town and he's busy."

Mr Findlay says most of the pure being peddled in Palmerston North is
locally produced. More police powers are needed.

"It's still a class-B drug. It needs to be made a class-A drug and give the
police more power to enter the labs and smash the equipment. Pure houses are
now more common in Auckland than tinnie (cannabis) houses."

Doing nothing or hoping that the problem goes away is not an option, he
says.

"I've seen the paranoia and the depression you get in these kids and I've
seen the violence that results from it.

"Someone is making money out of that."