KEY POINTS:
Government efforts in the fight against P have not been focused or funded enough and the country is playing catch-up on an epidemic showing no signs of slowing down, police and drug experts say.
Despite many high-profile busts and seizures, those working with users of P say the
demand for the drug is higher than ever.
A methamphetamine action plan drawn up in May 2003 as a multi-agency approach has led to P being upgraded from a Class B drug to Class A. Under the plan, police were given an extra drug lab response team, Customs was boosted by 16 officers, and money was given to rehabilitation programmes.
But critics say the plan is deficient in P-specific funding, there remains a lack of education on the drug and there are big gaps in policing gangs who control the P market - all issues that need to be addressed before we are on top of the problem.
Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton said there were "always areas that can be improved upon", but he was happy with the progress made since the plan was drawn up.
"There's no magic bullet in any of this. You can't say, 'Here is a template for fixing drug abuse.' Nobody knows. The whole world is caught up in this stuff ... it is a dangerous drug.
"But in the context of the serious effects of drugs, alcohol and tobacco are way up front by a country mile."
Police Association president Greg O'Connor disagrees.
Although he commended the plan, Mr O'Connor said, the Ministry of Health was too focused on alcohol and tobacco, and P had not been given a high enough priority.
Other police spoken to by the Herald echoed Mr O'Connor's sentiments, with two noting the country was playing catchup and chasing its tail on the P problem.
Mr O'Connor said the Australian Government had set aside $3 billion to target the drug.
Efforts to fight P in New Zealand had not affected the drug's price or supply, indicating a lack of progress.
"It comes back down to one question. Has anything that anybody has done affected the availability or price? And it hasn't. It's more lucrative than ever before."
Increases in violent crime statistics and in the growing amounts of P being found in busts showed the drug was on the rise.
Mr O'Connor said the disbanding of police drug squads from the late 1990s and a police focus on statistics had resulted in a huge lack of enforcement on mid-level dealers.
A single organisation - police - needed to standardise its own efforts and those of other organisations.
The biggest hope of tackling the problem was the recently announced Organised Crime Agency, which will target gang crime and serious fraud, among other things, but will not be in action until July.
Mr O'Connor hoped the agency would bring a national focus to the P issue. Education was also needed because there was no point in catching criminals supplying drugs without stopping the demand for the drugs.
"You've got to be fighting it at every level," he said.
Former detective Mike Sabin, who runs Methcon, a business teaching people about the addiction behind P use, said the present lack of education was likely to cause big social problems.
An entire generation was growing up accepting P as a readily available drug.
There was not enough prevention or education to stop people taking the drug.
