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Whale Oil slams PM's 'progress' on drug war

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Wed, 12 May 2010 1:51p.m.

Mr Slater says drug suppliers are continuing “business as usual”

Mr Slater says drug suppliers are continuing “business as usual”

By Chris Whitworth

Controversial Kiwi blogger Whale Oil has slammed the Prime Minister’s Monday report that suggested New Zealand police had made major progress in the drug war.  

Whale Oil, real name Cameron Slater, says stats released by specialist drug education company Methcon Group Ltd show the Government’s initiatives to battle methamphetamine have done nothing.

Mr Slater says drug suppliers are continuing “business as usual”.

“Organ­ised Crime has not changed one lit­tle bit since the new tougher regime was sup­pos­edly intro­duced,” he posted today.

Mr Slater cited MethCon’s press release, saying the price of P has remained the same, as has the purity of the drug.

Mike Sabin, managing director of Methcon, says it is premature of the Government to announce progress.

“I commend what they are doing on the supply side but to say we’re winning is a bit naïve and populous,” he says.

Prime Minister John Key announced Monday the Government is allocating $5.9 million to beef up Custom patrols in the new budget.

Mr Key also released a report showing an increase in border seizures and drug-related arrests in the last year. 

Mr Sabin says the Government is only seeing the tip of the iceberg in drug trafficking.

“They’re just finding what has been coming for a long time,” he says.

“If they think they’ve got one quarter of what has been coming through they’re living in a fantasy land.”

Controlling the balance between demand and supply is the only way to tackle the war on drugs, says Mr Sabin.

He says education campaigns in schools and advertising are the main roads to do so.

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Comments

13 May 2010 11:23p.m.

marie wrote:

If Mike Sabins thinks Education advertising is the key then he is living in a fastasy land too. Amercia has been doing this for well over 30 years and their drug problem has not declined it has got worse. Even Obama has said that their war on drugs policies have been a utter failure yet we continue to march to the beat of their drum by putting their failed policies into our country.Instead of blindly following hard line drug policies like the US UK Asia we should look at countries like Portugal when formulating its drug policies. Portugal decriminalised all illicit drugs in 2001 and in 2006 the Cato Institute reviewed the policy and found that in the five years since they decriminalised:
1 The number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled
2 Deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half
3 New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17%
4 The use of every type of illegal drug either went down or remained stable
5 Prevalence rates for heroin dropped by 40%
6 Illegal drug use among teens declined
7 Portugal's rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 dropped to one of the lowest in the E.U at 10%
Glenn Greenwald say's " Decriminalisation in Portugal has been a resounding success. It has enabled the government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does". United Nations also declared "Portugal's policy has reportedly not led to an increase in drug tourism that was predicted....it also appears that number of drug related problems have decreased". It is our government and it's policies that have created a world of drug dealers who carry mobile phones and pagers so that customers can get a hit faster than they can order a bottle of whiskey from their local. Our drug policies have produced two dreadful by products. It has spawned a ruthless blackmarket generating million of dollars to criminals and turned users into criminals. we taxpayers are funding it.

12 May 2010 08:42p.m.

Chris wrote:

He is wrong. I work at CADS and there is a change. We see a statistical decline. Slater has it wrong - and it does take time.

12 May 2010 04:26p.m.

Baker wrote:

Whale Oil is so full of it. And how exactly does he know that drug dealers are doing business as usual is he isn't one himself? If I was a Cop I'd be knocking on his door and asking him how he knows the things he does about the drug trade, he obviously knows something. Get a real job

12 May 2010 03:56p.m.

Lightseed wrote:

back in the early 2000's Labour disbanded the specialized police drug units allowing the drug problem in NZ to get out of control. This problem is going to take quite a while to tackle. Don't know why the news is carrying the views of the obese whale blogger.