NZ chasing US-sized habit

By SCOTT MacLEOD

New Zealand's hard drug problem is on track to be as bad as the United States', says our top drug intelligence policeman.

One of the key fronts in stopping that growth is controlling the "precursor" substances needed to make the class-A drugs speed and P, says the head of the national drug intelligence bureau, Detective Inspector Gary Knowles.

The supply chain starts with "shoppers" - criminals who risk jail to buy packet-loads of seemingly harmless cold and flu tablets.

The trail ends with a cycle of violent crime as speed-fuelled criminals rob, and sometimes kill, for cash to feed their cravings.

The shoppers earn a living from buying Sudafed, Actifed, Robitussin and other cold and flu products that contain the speed ingredients ephedrine or pseudoephedrine.

A crew working together might cruise the North Island visiting pharmacies. They might have a list of shop assistants known to be "soft" on writing down details of suspicious customers.

But as a growing number of pharmacists check licence-plate details and tell police of dodgy purchases, shoppers have turned to the internet.

Each packet of flu pills they buy for $14 can be sold to a cook for $100.

The cook is usually employed by a gang.

His tools are the flu pills, glassware, stolen chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, and a heat source.

The result is either a lucrative drug or a large explosion.

If successful, the cook will still have to dispose of litres of dangerous chemicals and deal with strong fumes than can gradually drive him mad.

Police have told the Herald of a deluded cook who attacked a tree outside his house and another who tried to "kill" an inanimate object with a shotgun.

The methamphetamine which is made by the cooks is then passed on to gang-linked suppliers until it arrives on the street, usually in a pure form called P that sells at $1000 a gram.

The number of people who smoke P is unknown, but the 2001 National Drug Survey found that 5 per cent of New Zealanders aged between 15 and 45 had used an illegal stimulant such as methamphetamine in the previous year.

The number of cooks busted by police rose from nine in 2000 to 147 last year, and could double this year, Mr Knowles says.

Speed was a factor in the Ese Falealii killing spree, and, just last Sunday, the drive-by shooting in which at least 10 bullets were fired into a Petone shop.

Mr Knowles said a visiting expert warned two years ago that New Zealand could expect to see "bizarre, violent crimes" and more celebrities being busted for possessing hard drugs.

He said we were now seeing examples of that.

Methamphetamine in the news

SEPTEMBER 19

The head of the Coral-Ellen Burrows inquiry, Detective Inspector Rod Drew remarks "There's lots I would like to say about that", when asked whether P may have been involved in her death.

SEPTEMBER 18

The High Court hears that John Karaipa Johnson, found not guilty of murder due to insanity, smoked P every day to stay awake.

Johnson had stabbed Faletoi Kei to death in Maraetai, Auckland, 17 months earlier during a family picnic. Said to be delusional during the attack.

SEPTEMBER 17

Lynley Anne Gill, 40, a Taupo mother, pleads not guilty to possessing methamphetamine for supply. Remanded to appear in the High Court at Rotorua next month.

SEPTEMBER 15

Mark Allan Nicholson, 32, of Kamo, is fined $1000 for having methamphetamine and utensils to smoke the drug.

Paul Aliceoun Campbell, 28, caught with three bottles of cough medicine, sentenced in the Napier District Court to 200 hours' community work.

SEPTEMBER 12

Rotorua raids net one of city's biggest methamphetamine and stolen-property hauls when $27,000 worth of P is found at a Holdens Bay house.

SEPTEMBER 11

Takapuna Grammar teacher David Arthur, 47, is charged with supplying class A drugs after students on a video claim to be smoking speed.

SEPTEMBER 10

Michael John Carman, 43, sentenced to 4 1/2 years' jail at the Auckland District Court, after admitting he made and supplied speed, and possessed cannabis for supply.

SEPTEMBER 9

Auckland Crown Solicitor, Simon Moore, says Ese Junior Falealii, 19, who shot dead Marcus Doig and John Vaughan in May last year, was high on P to give himself "Dutch courage".

Police find a speed factory in Glen Eden, a west Auckland suburb where 20 labs were found last year.

Peter Andrew Carlyon, 23, of no fixed abode, is jailed for nine months in the High Court at Auckland after admitting buying speed precursors.

A 24-year-old Malaysian student appears in the Oamaru District Court on drug charges including possessing P for supply.

- compiled by LOUISA CLEAVE AND SCOTT MACLEOD