Editorial: Police help break drug crime spiral

Inspector Mike Foster

Police have been cracking down on drugs in rural towns along the East Coast - and their hard work has been reflected with more arrests.

Cannabis convictions have doubled in Wairoa in the last five years - from 17 to 34.

It is bucking the downward trend with both Napier and Hastings halving the number of convictions compared with five years ago.

Ministry of Justice records show cannabis-related convictions in Hastings District Court dropped from 133 in 2010 to 57 in the last financial year. In Napier, convictions fell from 167 to 67.

The Eastern District Organised Crime Unit targeted Wairoa during the summer "growing months".

Drugs had long been a problem in the area, Detective Inspector Mike Foster said.

Not only was the East Coast weather perfect for longs days at the beach but it made for good cannabis growing conditions.

"There's always going to be a lot around, hence the focus on drug dealers and growers," he told Hawke's Bay Today.

Police have put more of an emphasis on drug dealing and trafficking in recent years because the trade has a domino effect on other areas of crime.

Valuable "grocery money" goes up in smoke, leading some to try their hand at shoplifting to feed the family. Soon shoplifting isn't enough and some turn to burglaries to fund their drug habit.

It's a vicious cycle and one which often takes court intervention to break.

I applaud police on their tough stance on drugs. In theory, if you take away the trigger, you take away the crime. In reality, it's not as straight forward.

However, we have to start somewhere and if we can stop one person from selling to another, that's one person less falling into that downward spiral.