the Government have finally announced their response to soaring Meth use with a $30million project that includes new powers for organised crime, more money for rehabilitation and a focus on marine surveillance – will it be enough…
Praise as government launches plan to combat methamphetamine
There is widespread support for the government’s new action plan to combat methamphetamine use, with the Drug Foundation commending its “health-focused interventions”.
A mental wellness provider from Northland is also welcoming the news, saying it’s a “fantastic start”, and the chairperson of the Ministerial Advisory Group on Transnational and Organised Crime saying it was positive that multiple ministers were involved in order to address the issue in its “totality”.
On Sunday, the government announced what Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith called a “comprehensive action plan to combat methamphetamine harm in New Zealand”.
It is the result of the prime minister’s ‘meth sprint team’ made up of the ministers for justice, police, customs, courts and mental health, who were tasked with tackling the issue.
That came after a drastic rise in consumption of methamphetamine last year. RNZ investigated what community providers needed in response, which was largely more funding for grassroots solutions.
For almost a decade I have been blogging about the impact of the 501s on the domestic organised criminal landscape in NZ.
While politicians of every hue have claimed our gangs were the worst, turns out they were horribly wrong because the 501 syndicates have brought a level of criminal sophistication and uber violence from the Australian underworld that has seen murders and stand over tactics by the 501 syndicates as they have moved to take over the meth trade.
NZ has horribly dropped the ball on the new realities of organised crime.
The 501s use counterintelligence tactics adopted from South American Cartels, and they sell a cheaper, purer meth than the domestic gangs can sell.
What’s new now is the Chinese shadow banking infrastructure that allows syndicates to pay for drugs directly from Cartels.
The reality about the new FBI base in Wellington is an acknowledgement that we are out of our depth here and need FBI expertise to track these new criminal infrastructures.
501 syndicates talking to South American cartels will be intercepted by GCSB in co-ordination with the new FBI Base who will then turn the intel over to domestic Police so that we can side step laws to not spy on NZ citizens.
A point of meth in America costs $5, in NZ it is $100! That level of profit margin is a supply and demand equation that we can’t beat so the focus needs to go on the demand as much as the supply and on this front, the $30million is underwhelming.
The Government are committing to $30million over 4 years to tackle meth, of that around $2.5million per year will be spent on rehabilitation.
We currently spend $235million per year on addiction and it costs $18 000 for a 30 day rehab.
We know meth addiction can take up to 12months – meaning the 2.5m is a pittance to protect whanau and community from the carnage of meth.
The plan is a good first step because much of what will be done is hidden beneath the surface but it does highlight how utterly out of touch we have been over the 501s and their impact on the domestic gang landscape.
The counter intelligence tactics, criminal sophistication and uber violence combined opens NZ institutions up to corruption.
Take the McSkimming’s scandal. It’s this very type of situation that syndicates would use to blackmail officials, we are going to see far more senior detectives being bribed and customs officers being blackmailed by the syndicates and we don’t ahem any real answers to that problem.
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