P pushers target kids

By JO-MARIE BROWN and ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

Children as young as 9 have been offered free "party packs" of pure methamphetamine as the P epidemic deepens - but communities are fighting back.

Across the country, small towns have taken imaginative steps to combat the drug and a Herald survey has found hopeful signs that the scourge can be contained.

Anti-drug campaigners say the "party packs" give children a glass bomb (pipe), a lighter and enough P for two smokes.

Children aged 9 and upwards have been offered them by older youths in Whakatane, says Johanna Wilson, who helps run the town's "no need for speed" team.

The team uses schools and community groups to warn youngsters of the drug's dangers.

Other centres are trying to get rid of P using innovative techniques and special events.

In Kawerau, ex-addict and former Mongrel Mob member Warwick Godfrey has organised a boxing match featuring local police, firefighters and current and former gang members, billed as the Fight Against Drugs.

Singing competitions, growing vegetables and erecting billboards are among other methods communities are using to convince people to steer clear of drugs altogether.

"There's definitely a real movement and P has been the catalyst for that," said Kim Conway, who leads a research team evaluating anti-drug programmes in 20 towns around the country.

"Because of P's unpredictable and volatile effect, people have woken up.

"It's certainly something that communities are now saying they can't just ignore and think it will go away. A lot of people hadn't realised just how immersed [in drugs] their communities were."

In Kaitaia, people were stunned to discover a few years ago that sports coaches were giving out "dak packs" (marijuana) as prizes for player of the day.

Kaumatua and kuia in the Bay of Plenty have been assaulted by their grandchildren who are high on P, and last year a record 200 methamphetamine laboratories were discovered by police - 33 times more than were found five years ago.

In addition to the 20 areas chosen by the Government to run Community Action on Youth and Drugs (Cayad) programmes, other towns have successfully started up their own initiatives.

In Murupara, one drug dealer left town after local children dobbed him in to police and in South Wairarapa someone handed over their P equipment after a public lecture on the drug's dangers.

Ms Conway said the key was to adapt ideas to suit the needs of particular communities.

Organising sports and cultural events gave people something to do other than take drugs and were also an effective way of encouraging people to work together on long-term solutions.

"What you're trying to do is get a bit of community pride going. Get people to take ownership of things that are happening in their community because when it comes down to it, people do want the best for their kids," she said.

Creating employment opportunities was another vital tool. In Opotiki and Whangaruru, in the Far North, market gardens were set up for cannabis growers to tend vegetable crops instead.

"Growing dope to make a living is considered entrepreneurial in some areas and now of course P is a very profitable enterprise," Ms Conway said. "In Whangaruru, one grower who was selling the surplus veggies at a roadside stall said it was the first legitimate money he had made in ages."

The concept of community policing, where kaumatua or other respected people ask drug dealers and manufacturers to stop or leave town, was also paying dividends in some places.

Ms Conway's team at the SHORE (Social Health Outcomes, Research and Evaluation) centre offers advice and feedback to those running the 20 Government-funded programmes.

But for those towns doing their own thing, it was proving difficult to know which initiatives worked and which didn't.

Tere Lenihan, who co-ordinates anti-drug efforts in South Wairarapa, said a forum where such information could be shared was desperately needed.

"Even if there was a website or something. A lot of energy and effort goes into doing things with these communities and why reinvent the wheel when someone else has already done it?"

Additional reporting: Tony Gee