Paul Holmes: Time to declare outright war on P

P affects every sector of society. Photo / Martin Sykes

To the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key.

Dear Prime Minister:

The recommendation to you from your science adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman, that the Government could ban over-the-counter, non-prescription sales of cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine, one of the precursors to the manufacture of pure methamphetamine or P, is a good one. To do so would be a step in the right direction. If nothing else, it would be a positive signal that the Government is intent on getting a real handle on the P problem.

As you observed at your news conference this week, P is a huge problem that tears lives and families apart. Especially prone to P addiction are vulnerable young women, as we have seen in my own family. But P does not discriminate. It affects the young and the middle-aged. It affects the rich and the poor.

People lose everything. In fact, P itself becomes the only thing in people's lives until they have lost the lot, their jobs, their wealth, their decency, their honesty and their self-respect.

P does not care who it takes on its road to hell. There is evidence that it can take hold of you after your very first hit. Certainly, frequent use of P over a few weeks will be enough to cause addiction, turning good people into secretive, thieving liars. Addicts cut themselves off from those they love, and cease to feel for anyone. P addicts have no care for the pain they are causing and they begin to associate only with those who use it, those who embrace and have been embraced by this evil, vicious, violently destructive drug.

When my own clever, funny and intelligent daughter was first arrested, P had captured her completely. I will never forget the horror of listening to her in the car when, with my brother, we drove north from Auckland to my sister-in-law's home where we planned to keep her safe and locked down in order to detox her and get her away from the drug. P had stolen my girl's heart and soul. I do not exaggerate when I tell you it was like driving along with the possessed little girl in The Exorcist.

You acknowledge that there is a real desire amongst the New Zealand community for something to be done about the P epidemic, an industry you suggest could be at a value to those involved of $1.5 billion. If this is true, then the problem is huge. I think there is more than a real desire to see something done. I suggest the desire is passionate. But we have not only a desire to break this industry. New Zealand, as a nation, must break it. P has declared war on our communities.

And if it is a $1.5 billion industry, then that has not come about because of the sale of a few cold and flu tablets over the counter of the chemist shops. The main thrust of any war on P has to be launched at our borders. But, as I say, the banning of sales of medicines containing pseudoephedrine to any Tom, Dick or Harry sends a message of intent.

Since Sir Peter made his recommendation, and since the Stellar Trust issued its positive response to him, I have heard from a coroner who happens also to be a chemist. He says the contribution of over-the-counter sales of drugs containing pseudoephedrine to the P epidemic is miniscule. And he says that if the drugs were still available on prescription, chemists would still have to have the drugs on site. However, he mentioned a Queensland system called Project Stop. All Queensland chemists are on-line. A customer buying cold or flu medicine containing a precursor has to produce a driver's licence. This name of the purchaser is entered immediately online and the police can react very smartly. In New Zealand, the information the police get from chemists is historic, not immediate. This coroner tells me the online reporting system is believed to have led to a 30 per cent drop in the number of P labs in Queensland in the past five years.

But a $1.5 billion industry is, as you and your colleagues well understand, a hell of a thing to take on. Certainly P is everywhere. When my daughter was first arrested we could not believe the letters and emails we got. People stopped me in the street to tell me a P story, in which family or friends or colleagues had been ruined by the drug. It seems everyone has a P story. And they are horrific tales of heartbreak. In our documentary Chasing the Ghost I asked 10 youngsters at an Auckland high school if they knew anyone who had taken P. Half put their hands up.

We probably all know where we also have to assault the problem, big time. We have to find our way deep inside the powerful gangs. The problem is well above the useless lads who walk round wearing patches. They are probably as addicted as anyone.

Prime Minister, it is time to be ruthless with the gangs and their business associates.

It is time for an inquiry into gangs and some really effective investigation of them.

It is time for heat and fire.

I read last weekend that my daughter is on the dole. I was sad for her again. I am not suggesting for a moment there is shame in being on the dole itself, especially at this time. But that a young woman with so much going for her, such beautiful looks, such a clever mind, a clever wit, a lovely smile and a lovely voice is on the dole saddens me. It is such a waste. And it goes on and on.

I suspect she is on the unemployment benefit without a job because she cannot work even if she wanted to. This is where P has taken her and so many others. This is the destruction of our human capital P is causing.

The other pressing needs, while we do battle with the manufacturers and the profiteers who are stealing the lives of our children, are, as I have mentioned to you before, detoxification and rehabilitation centres. They are not the same thing.

We need decent, plentiful lock-down detox centres to which people can be bailed when their addiction gets them arrested.

By the time an addict appears in court, fried and lost and in serious trouble, probably having not slept for days or weeks, their families can either cope no longer or will already have abandoned them.

There is no point bailing the addict on to the street. By then, they only know one kind of person, P fiends and criminals, back to whom they will immediately go. To release them without support for a change of direction is crazy.

Then, when the addict has a couple of drug-free months under the belt, he or she will, hopefully, be ready for some rehabilitation. We have a dire need of affordable, available rehabilitation throughout the country. Even then, of course, you can lead a horse to water ...

Well, Prime Minister, it's a big shopping list, I know. But we are, as you say, attacking a $1.5 billion industry, an industry of evil. And while we attempt to destroy it, we have to care for those who have fallen prey to its powerful, far-reaching tentacles, especially those who want to escape them.

Sincerely,

Paul.