O'Reilly on point over killer P

Black Power life member and veteran bureaucrat Denis O'Reilly brought his grim battle against street methamphetamine to Masterton yesterday.
A former P abuser, Mr O'Reilly spoke at Te Rangimarie Marae at the invitation of iwi authority Kahungunu ki Wairarapa and brought with him fellow speakers Mane Edwards and former rugby league star Kevin Tamati.
The father of six, who holds a masters degree in social practice and was a director of the New Zealand Employment Service and chief executive of the Group Employment Liaison Service, began a life of social advocacy after striking up a close relationship with former prime minister Sir Robert Muldoon in the 1980s.
Mr O'Reilly said he began his crusade against P in 2004 after a cluster of suicides among his Black Power "brothers" in Auckland, caused through methamphetamine abuse.
He has since written columns and blogs on the subject, spoken throughout New Zealand, and helped forge an alliance between the Mongrel Mob and Black Power against the drug's manufacture, distribution and use.
He was also pivotal in the Meth-Free Hawke's Bay campaign launched in November which involved government agencies.
Mr O'Reilly said Kiwi meth abusers and manufacturers formed two main demographic clusters - low-income Maori and high income non-Maori - linked by a less significant strand of P addicts and dealers from all levels of society. Low-income users existed on low-grade meth and high income on higher grade.
Despite popular belief, it was not Maori or Polynesian gangs who dominated the drug's importation, manufacture and distribution, despite their persistent involvement as users, for the main part, and small-time dealers secondarily.
"It's the Asian networks," he said.
Mr O'Reilly earlier told the New Zealand Herald that many New Zealand gang chapters had risen up against P and its prevalence among younger people in their communities.
"For the first time, you have a gang demographic that is similar to the social demographic in terms of the older members, so there is a window of opportunity there, to work with those people and redefine things."
He had chosen to target methamphetamine particularly, because P abuse denied the abuser "their ability to experience natural pleasure" and "fills that void" with apathy and loathing.
"I started using in a period of my life when I was in a bit of a rattle. That stuff came along and I thought, 'crikey, that's good stuff'. Then it started killing off my brothers. I knew then it had to be wiped out, completely."