NEWS: The Age - 10/09/2006 'Pacific a new front in war on drugs'

Pacific a new front in war on drugs
Jason Koutsoukis, Canberra
September 10, 2006

INTERNATIONAL criminal gangs exploiting Australia's dangerous and often fatal thirst for amphetamines are turning to the unpatrolled islands of the Pacific to manufacture drugs on a massive scale.

Federal Justice Minister Chris Ellison told The Sunday Age that Australia needed to concentrate on combating use of amphetamines and shutting down their manufacture in the South Pacific.

"I honestly think amphetamines are the biggest challenge we face as a nation," Senator Ellison said. "We need to shine a very big spotlight on this."

With thousands of islands to choose from, highly professional, cashed-up organised crime gangs are using the Pacific as a base for the manufacture, storage and transhipment of amphetamines including ecstasy, crack, ice and speed.

Australian Federal Police are increasingly worried at the ability of organised crime to evade detection in the South Pacific and import the drugs into Australia, which has the highest per capita use of ecstasy in the world.

Ecstasy use in Australia has almost tripled in the past 13 years, while users of other amphetamines have increased from 2 per cent to 3.2 per cent.

"I am very, very concerned about the increase in amphetamines production on a very large scale in the South Pacific," Senator Ellison said.

"Drugs manufacture and transportation is suited to countries where the infrastructure for government is not as strong or as robust as it is here in Australia.

"Because it is such a vast area, with many small nations and thousands of small islands, it is just an ideal place for transnational criminal syndicates to operate and base their drugs operations.

"And it's not only the drug trade which is of concern, but also money-laundering activities. And the potential is there also for terrorist groups to start exploiting the relative freedom which exists in the region."

The Australian Federal Police has successfully established units across the region. Officers are based in countries including Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Fiji and Vanuatu.

In 2004, AFP officers were involved in a joint operation with US, Malaysian and New Zealand police that busted what was then the biggest amphetamines laboratory discovered in the southern hemisphere.

Some laboratories were so sophisticated they were capable of producing up to 100 kilograms of amphetamines a week, Senator Ellison said.

He was involved in efforts to establish a permanent working group across the region to combat what he called the "amphetamines scourge."

He said his greatest worry was that with demand for amphetamines and ecstasy skyrocketing in Australia, overseas gangs would increasingly target Australia as their best market.

"Demand here for amphetamines is just huge, and yet few people really understand how serious this problem is," Senator Ellison said.

In June, a federal parliamentary inquiry into amphetamine use in Australia was warned that Australia would continue to lose the war on drugs while policies were directed at drug users instead of suppliers.

In its submission to the inquiry, the Australian Crime Commission said that demand for amphetamines and drugs such as ecstasy was growing steadily.

"Intelligence gathered by the ACC and its partner agencies indicates the domestic demand for amphetamines and other synthetic drugs is increasing, with little likelihood this trend will alter in the near future," the ACC submission said.

"I think the war against drugs in the Pacific is one that we can win," Senator Ellison said.

"It's the one in Australia, however, that is going to take a lot longer."

A report by the Queensland Alcohol and Drug Research and Education Centre tabled in Federal Parliament earlier this year criticised the police for inadequate information sharing, data collection and record keeping.

Police services say that the use of "ice", a purer form of amphetamine or speed, is of concern because it is highly addictive and many users become psychotic.

NSW Police report that their intelligence has found most ice enters Australia through New Zealand after being produced in "superlabs" in China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Fiji.

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storage and transhipment of amphetamines including ecstasy, crack, ice and speed.

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Indonesia region's new drugs gateway
Cameron Stewart
September 19, 2006

INDONESIA is emerging as a drug haven on Australia's doorstep and a key transit point for deadly shipments of heroin, cocaine and amphetamines to our shores.

A major new report by the federal Government's Australian National Council on Drugs also reveals an alarming rise in the use, production and trafficking of illicit drugs across the Asia-Pacific region.

And it identifies a new breed of drug user in Asia - the affluent children of those who are riding the region's economic boom. "Amphetamines are making substantial inroads into rapidly growing and economically powerful youth cultures in many countries," the report says.

"This is especially the case among children of political leadership in some countries."

The report, obtained exclusively by The Australian, has worrying implications for Australia, which has boosted police resources in the region to try to strangle the flow of illicit drugs.

It finds Indonesia and China have emerged as key players.

"Following the end of the Suharto era there has been a considerable growth in the drug trade (in Indonesia)," the report finds.

"Indonesia was previously a transit rather than destination country for illicit drugs but this has recently changed so that Indonesia is now a point of transit, a destination and a source of drugs."

Indonesia's wild and remote coastline is a haven for drug-smugglers wanting to bring their illegal cargo into Australia. "Cocaine from the Andes travels via Brazil onwards to Hong Kong, then to Denpasar (Bali) and often to Australia," the report says.

In April last year, nine young Australians were caught in Bali trying to smuggle almost 9kg of heroin into Australia as part of an elaborate multinational trafficking plot. Six of the Bali Nine have been condemned to death.

As well as Indonesia, the report finds that China has emerged as the new drug leader of Asia - a powerhouse of drug production where ecstasy tablets are made for as little as US6c (8c) a tablet.

New drug routes from Afghanistan into western China have turned the old Silk Road into a drug superhighway.

"In recent years the trafficking of drugs through China has increased substantially," it says.

"Most of the heroin produced in Myanmar (70 to 80 tonnes a year) is now trafficked through China ... an important transshipment route for the international market."

And the report identifies the Pacific Island states as a growing hub for drugs bound for Australia and elsewhere in the region.

"The geographic position of countries in the Pacific region facilitates the drug trade, both eastbound and westbound. South American cocaine is transported into Southeast Asia and Australia, while Southeast Asian heroin and methamphetamine are transported by couriers into Canada and into the United States."

The ANCD, which provides research and advice to the Government on drugs, is highly critical of efforts by regional governments to tackle the scourge, saying they are woefully inadequate and ineffective.

ANCD head Gino Vumbaca said the report's findings were disturbing. "The number of illicit drug users throughout the Asian region has increased dramatically over the past decade," he said.

"We should not underestimate the threat that illicit drug use and supply poses to the wider Asia-Pacific region's stability and the potential impact of this situation on Australia."

Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Health Christopher Pyne said the report vindicated the Government's concern about the rise of synthetic drugs.

Additional reporting: Matthew Franklin

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p_d your stories are always interesting and eye opening.... gee i bet there are some stories you'd love to share with us, but couldnt!!!

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