Editorial: Police need to keep up the drug fight

Of all the dodgy things your workmates might get up to at home - and, let's face it, the options don't bear thinking about - drug-use is possibly the only one which could have a direct impact on your safety.

Experts say people recovering from some quality time with their P-pipe, or hanging out for their next session, could be erratic, jumpy, careless, paranoid or nursing a particularly short fuse.

Add heavy machinery and deadline pressure, and that work colleague becomes a frightening liability.

When you consider the vast majority of workers commute along busy roads to get to and from work, the risks for the whole community are evident.

New Zealand Drug Detection Agency figures show of the 401 Western Bay employees who tested positive for drugs in the past year, 21 per cent - or 84 people - had amphetamine-type substances such as ecstasy or methamphetamine, which is known as P, in their system.

Nationally, this figure was 14 per cent.

Detection Agency Bay of Plenty general manager Leigh Sefton isn't holding back: "That's 84 people on the road on meth driving at you, and that's only those from the workplace."

The industries surveyed range from white collar workers to those in forestry and transport.

Imagine the damage caused by an accountant who is working through your tax return while recovering from a P-bender, a chainsaw-wielding forestry worker with a chemically induced feeling of invincibility, or - undoubtedly most frightening of all - a logging truck driver thundering along the roads on an amphetamine buzz.

The illicit drug trade creates a small clutch of financial winners and a large trail of social dysfunction.

While I don't really care what adults without dependants get up to in their own homes, I have contempt for the addict who dares to put other people's families in danger when they take to the roads under the influence of drugs, the parents who are weak enough to feed their habit rather than their children, and the P-cooks and dealers who prey on those without the resources to resist the lure of drugs.

Addiction is an illness and overcoming it is a complex process. These statistics suggest the Bay has an increasing problem with amphetamines, and the destruction caused by drugs such as P is well-known.

What a shame, then, that this week we learned police funding is likely to be slashed. This community needs a robust and agile police force, capable of assigning additional resources to areas such as drug enforcement when figures such as this highlight an urgent need. We must find the money to step up existing efforts to fight addiction and the local drug trade.