Editorial: We must keep the heat on cocaine shipments

Editorial

The battle against drugs is endless everywhere. Our Review feature reveals New Zealand is now a prime market for cocaine.

With that drug falling out of favour in the United States and more coca being produced in Colombia since the country made peace with rebels in its interior, American and Mexican cartels are moving more cocaine to Australian and New Zealand.

Here it is selling at one of its highest prices in the world, which is a measure of the size of the market it is finding.

The good news is we only know this because the Police and Customs are on to it. They are sharing intelligence with drug enforcement agencies around the world and have their own agents Washington DC, Brussels, Beijing, Bangkok, Jakarta and Canberra. They are working with the Air Force maritime surveillance patrol to spot suspicious craft.

They know drugs are now mainly coming into New Zealand by sea rather than air, which means larger consignments than can be strapped to the bodies of air passengers or concealed in their baggage. Last October four men were arrested after retrieving 46kg of cocaine from a compartment on the exterior of a container ship that had arrived from Chile.

There have been a number of telling busts in recent years, notably the big bejewelled "Aztec" horse head ornament that had 35kg of cocaine inside, worth $14 million. Customs and police covertly watched its progress and arrested a Mexican and American as they hastily tried to leave the country. Their local contact, also an American, went to ground but was caught after a year and pleaded guilty last week.

But the bad news is that success such as these are probably only a fraction of the quantity coming in. They serve to show how the lengths people will go to import these drugs and the risks they will take when there are riches to be made.

That is why in this year's Budget Customs was given an additional $54.2 million over four years for new initiatives to disrupt international drug smuggling networks. It will fund more maritime patrols and other measures to make seizures offshore if possible.

New Zealand is fortunate to have no land borders, it should be easier to keep these drugs out of this country than many others. At the same time, distribution networks inside the country should be run to ground.

Consumers pursued too, There would be no market without them.