Editorial

No one could say we’re not taking a multidisciplined approach to combating methamphetamine. The Government is reinvesting $15 million confiscated from criminals in meth-policing, and the Tribal Huks gang successfully gave the local Ngaruawahia P dealers 24 hours to get out of town. Both approaches have their critics and supporters. But from the howls of cynicism greeting the Government’s approach – overshadowing reservations about that of the Huks – National must wonder where it has gone wrong. What’s so controversial about the stepping-up of the war on drugs?

That’s a possible answer right there: the whole concept of a war on drugs. New Zealand, along with most developed countries, has waged one for decades with no victory in sight. Some critics say our whole approach, based on criminalising harmful drugs, has been futile. This is somewhat fatuous, and positively reckless when it comes to children’s welfare. We know from our disastrous experiment with synthetic cannabis that making a drug legal for adults makes it considerably easier for youngsters to get their hands on.

It’s true that data from liberalised regimes such as Portugal and the Netherlands shows that, for many recreational drugs, live-and-let-live can work well, or at least better than prohibition. Drug-related crime abates and poor health consequences are more readily averted when users are supervised rather than criminalised. But different parameters apply to methamphetamine. There is no such thing as safe experimentation. It’s highly unlikely a meth user can stay healthy and functional the way heroin and cannabis users can. It is a neurotoxin with a slew of harmful side effects, not least psychosis.

There’s some evidence of harm minimisation from overseas programmes using supervised inhalation facilities, but given the pernicious neurological effect of this drug, such treatment is unlikely to find public or political favour here.

There are three questions we should always ask about any addictive drug: are we policing it enough, are we treating its users sufficiently and are we getting the weighting and sequencing of questions one and two right?

The negative answer to question one seems a further likely impetus for public scepticism. Despite months of denials every time the Opposition chronicles stretched police capacity in various regions, the Government has suddenly admitted that police numbers are indeed lower than what’s needed. In the year to June, reported crime rose 3.1% but police patrols fell by 3% (5% in Auckland). At the same time, assaults rose 6.5%, robberies 12% and burglaries 13%.

Having promised to maintain a rate of one police officer for every 500 citizens – we’re now at 1/526 – the Government could hardly maintain its denials.

Although extra recruiting is now in train, details of how this latest P-targeted money – the second tranche of $15 million – will be spent suggest deeper thinking has been under way. Treatment will consume $8.7 million extra, including for prison inmates and extended treatment periods for those released from prison. More treatment facilities mean police will have greater flexibility to channel offenders to treatment rather than the justice system, or at least ensure there is treatment, not just punishment.

It appears methamphetamine use has declined since its peaks in the 2000s, but it remains a considerable feeder of crime and appears to have a stubborn “tail” of users. They need intensive and long-term treatment.

Expensive though this is, it’s nothing compared with the cost of leaving a person untreated. The Ministry of Justice estimates a career criminal – the trajectory of many a P user – costs $3 million over a lifetime in police, justice and corrections services alone. That excludes downstream health costs and, of course, the cost and suffering of victims.

More than $4 million of the new funding will go on Customs and police efforts to reduce the traffic in meth and its precursor drugs from Asia and the US. The tip of the iceberg of such trafficking goes through our courts – another pragmatic reason for placing more emphasis on treatment in proportion to policing.

It only remains to ask why the rest of the $138 million seized from criminals cannot be similarly redirected. When even the gangs, who traditionally profit from drugs, are worried, it would be hard to slate any politician for overreacting.

Even the gangs, who traditionally profit from drugs, are worried.