No matter how much drugs Customs find, dealers are still looking for new ways to hide it.
And why are they doing it? The allure of the wealth. Drugs brought into New Zealand are sold at dozens times the price they are bought overseas (being illegal only helps the margins).
I see this as the equivalent of a price war between two competing chains. As adept as customs officials are, they aren't nearly as motivated as the drug dealers who manage to keep one step ahead of them. What do I propose to end this?
Crowdsourcing.
Open up the problem to the public, give them the constraints Customs operate under and what the avenues of opportunity are. Get the public to help you figure 101 ways to import drugs in everything being imported into the country.
Furthermore it plants the seed of how difficult the problem is to the public.
You could also take this a step further - expose these constraints to the public with the eye to creating technology that can detect drugs.
A guaranteed contract for whoever can solve the problem. This is a win/win for all parties involved.
Companies all around the world are using such technologies to do exactly this.
Innovation Exchange allows companies to expose their problems to a group of innovators who can pitch their solutions for a prize. The prizes are decent as well with most starting at US$50,000 and upwards of several hundred thousand.
Dell also uses a crowdsourcing initiative DellIdeaStorm.com that allows customers to suggest and vote on new product developments.
They key is creating the opportunity for motivated parties to have their voice heard.
How many people in New Zealand would you need to help Customs with their problem? Not many.
Then Customs can get ahead of the game.
Sure the public will reveal new ways that haven't been utilised yet but (in theory) those methods would have been exploited at some point in time.
So stop chasing your tails and take control of the game.
*Ben Young from bwagy is the author of the upcoming book The Best Ideas are Free.
