Drugmakers turn hotel rooms into ice labs
Linda Smith
October 18, 2007 10:00am
TASMANIA'S illicit drug manufacturers are hiring hotel rooms, caravans and holiday units to convert them into makeshift drug labs.
Police say the growing practice -- which stems from a widespread trend interstate -- involves drug makers checking into hotels and caravan parks under false names and then spending days making drugs which they then sell to the Tasmanian public.
Detective Inspector Glenn Frame, from Tasmania Police's southern drug investigation service, said the drug manufacturers were carefully packing the required glassware and chemicals needed to make amphetamines into a couple of boxes or suitcases.
Then they check into a hotel room or holiday cabin -- often in rural areas -- and stay for an average of one or two days.
Often they do not sleep during this time, but instead work flat out cooking up drugs.
They then pack up and leave, often without anyone ever noticing what they have been up to.
"We certainly have got a problem with ecstasy and methamphetamines in Tasmania," Det Insp Frame said.
He said police were working hard to ensure the problem didn't become as big as it was in some other states.
He said there had been significant trafficking arrests in Tasmania in the last 18 months, and while the majority of drugs came across Bass Strait, police also seized several clandestine labs during this time.
He said while these were small operations, they were still commercial drug labs selling amphetamines on the streets of Tasmania.
Which is why it was so important that police target drug crime in Tasmania.
"We're keen to make sure there doesn't become an increased market of manufacturing in Tasmania," Det Insp Frame said.
"Because there is a potential there if we're seen as a weak link ... it's not inconceivable that operations could become more focused in Tasmania and come to the stage where we're exporting (drugs produced in Tasmania).
He said the hotel-based labs could explode, start fires, and expose innocent people to chemical residue.
He said this was particularly concerning if families checked into rooms and had young children crawling around on the floor where drugs had just been made.
