Oh wow – South American Cartel links with 501 syndicates that TDB were warning about 3 years ago, why Mark Mitchell might be right & the only solution to meth addiction
Huge hauls of meth at the border dwarf police seizures
Down at Ports of Auckland in a spotless warehouse Customs staff are hauling out some of the items they’ve found big hauls of illicit drugs in.
Hey look at that, the South American Cartel links with 501 syndicates that TDB was waring about 3 years ago are having an impact on the meth trade.
They have a purer cheaper product and the 501s have the contacts which have bled over to the Hells Angels.
The sheer scale and profit margin from this has counter intelligence level sophistication that is corrosive to any Democracy.
The hundreds of millions this represents is outside the scale of a domestic Police force to counter effectively and requires full State involvement and a branch of Police capable of using full State response.
As much as I hate to admit it, Mark Mitchell’s Raptor Force Police Branch may well be required to counter this explosion in meth trade.
The money these Organised Crime Gangs are generating from Meth will finance aggressive tactics to protect that market and we have seen that with 501 syndicates standing over the domestic gangs.
Aggressive policing tactics however are a short term and immediate term strategy because ultimately the only thing that will push South American Cartels out of the NZ meth market is a drop in demand.
The price margin Cartels are making here is $100NZ for a point vs $5US in America. That’s a supply and demand equation that can only be broken by a sharp reduction in demand and the only way you can force demand down is with effective rehabilitation programs that take 6 months.
If we want to lower Organised Crimes influence over civil society we need to have fully funded meth rehab programmes that can lower demand which will lower the price which will deter Organised Crime and the only way you can fund 6 month meth rehab programmes is by legalising Cannabis and ring fencing profits for those rehabilitation programmes!
If cannabis were legalised, the New Zealand industry could employ about 5000 people and reap almost $1.1 billion in taxes a year, two in-depth reports by Business and Economic Research Ltd have shown.
We currently spend $15million per year on drug rehabilitation programmes.
Imagine if we ring fenced $100million from cannabis taxation to spend on drug rehabilitation!
There are solutions to our Meth drug problems and the danger Organised Crime like Cartels pose to the fabric of society, and heavy handed police responses are only part of that solution.
Legalising cannabis would provide the taxation to fund $100m worth of drug rehabilitation and break the meth addiction that is driving Cartel economic interest.
We need to be smarter with drug policy, not dumber!
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What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Well here the Police don’t have the resources to be an immovable object – so we get what we’ve got.
They would be better to legalise all drugs (make some, like meth, available on prescription so that the doctor can suggest better alternatives instead). That would destroy the entire industry.
The fact is – when life is bleak and miserable you look for something to ease the pain. Some reach for the wine, some for the chocolate. So you gotta do something here too. As well as provide easy affordable rehab options. Imho
What do you do with the carnage from the users fucked up impulsive decision making after legalisation?
You may as well make the cartels and gangs register for GST and offer share prospectuses and do school career seminars!
Being illegal is what causes most of the harm, I am a conservative Christian & are totally against recreational drug use (including alcohol) but it is plain to anyone taking an unbiased view that making their use a crime is the cause of most of the problems that result. Making Meth & other potentially dangerous drugs a prescription option would enable a level of medical supervision that does not currently exist while the tax on sales would be far better in government receipts than letting gangs profit from selling drugs.
Education (in general & about the harms of drug use) along with an economy providing decent jobs is probably the only way to reduce the demand for drugs since it is unlikely that a majority of the population is ever going to see the light & refrain from illicit substances like I did. I know that some people manage to combine occasional drug use with reputable jobs so it is very unlikely that demand will ever cease for recreational drugs.
NZ is seen low risk and a very soft touch.
And unfortunately, Labour pseudo decriminalising Meth by calling it a “health” issue has only encouraged its use, acceptance and addiction.
An outstanding example of Labours well intentioned hopelessly ill thought out kindness to crime policy.
National under Key should have stopped the 501’s at the border but he was to busy with barbecues and golf games. Labour was left with an entrenched policy that Key and National promoted.
An outstanding example of Nationals hopelessly ill thought out, Australia is our right wing friend. Proof Key couldn’t give a flying fuck about the people of NZ, just himself.
Let’s be real honest and as much as I do not like John Key, if Aussie wanted to ship 501’s to us, there was not a thing we could do about it.
And I recall Kelvin Davis going into bat for their rights in Australia so Labour weren’t exactly helpful!
Time for that much vaunted common sense to rise up and be seen and followed. The drugs trade has an observable path; check our the effects of prohibition in the USA. So reduce demand – is methadone useful here as a way of detracting? Cannabis growing for personal use. Let’s stop the puritans and the crooked two-faced leaders and pollies setting up inhuman rules of punishment for use. We have started with checking at large pop conce4rts. Needle exchanges. Now get real and tackle this ny depressing the market which is a triumph of economics over religious puritanism. We’re only human get used to it and stop trying to replace us with AI. It will upset your money cash flows you two-faced leaders.
More meth than ever in NZ.
Higher percentage of houses testing positive than ever, and it ain’t a good thing.
And yes, my main job is in the house inspection industry.