Linda Hall: Taste of drug scene burns innocents

Linda Hall.

I can't stop thinking about the mother and daughter confronted in their home by two males armed with a butcher's knife, their faces covered.

What a terrifying experience. Your home is meant to be your sanctuary. To have people barge in armed and demanding money sadly reveals how badly damaged our society is.

I know it's happened before and with much worse outcomes. Some might say the mother and daughter are lucky. As far as I know no one was physically hurt.

However, they weren't lucky. They were very unlucky that these lowlifes picked on their home.

They may not have been injured outwardly but I imagine the psychological damage would last a lifetime.

Because the intruders were armed and disguised it seems likely their action was planned.

The scary thing is they have not been apprehended. Someone out there knows who they are.

The comment by one neighbour was interesting. She said many elderly lived in the area and she had been part of a neighbourhood-watch group, but now that many of the houses were rentals people weren't really interested in forming such a group.

She said the tenants changed so often you didn't really get to know your neighbours.

Another said: "You don't invite strangers into your homes these days."

Who can blame them?

I'm fortunate. I know my neighbours. But homes in my area have been robbed while I was in my house in the day time and I saw nothing.

It's sad but the huge rise in crime has meant people don't trust others so easily.

One of the main reasons for the hike in crime clearly is drugs, especially the particularly nasty and addictive methamphetamine.

I know I go on about this but it's a subject that needs attention.

I wonder how the lives of many addicts would have turned out if they just hadn't had that first taste of it.

Many out there try to help addicts and their families and the police have been doing some excellent work in Hawke's Bay, targeting dealers.

There are also those who have been there and managed to come out the other side and now strive to help others get clean too.

Unfortunately, no matter how many times some people are told not to touch the stuff, they just have to find out for themselves.

It's a bit like telling a toddler repeatedly not to touch the heater because it will hurt them. Sadly, many never learn until they get burned.

The difference is that the toddler is the only one to get harmed, whereas people who take that step into the world of P end up hurting family, friends and sometimes even strangers when they steal to support their habit.

• Linda Hall is Hawke's Bay Today's Assistant Editor