Pubdate: Fri, 01 Aug 2003
Source: Manawatu Evening Standard (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2003 Manawatu Evening Standard
Contact:  http://www.manawatueveningstandard.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1057

HOW BEST TO COMBAT DRUGS

It would be a great pity if debate over the scale of methamphetamine abuse
got in the way of effective strategies being drawn up and implemented to
fight what is undoubtedly a scourge, if not an epidemic, comments the
Manawatu Standard in an editorial.

P has been around long enough now for its effects to be identified as a
qualitative leap from previous drugs. It has been found to be profoundly
addictive, behaviour-changing - and costly for those who are hooked on it.
So when Palmerston North Drug-Arm co-ordinator Lew Findlay says he is
getting up to five new calls every day from parents frantic to know how to
help their children, then we all ought to sit up and take notice.

Furthermore, he says, it is something that has been going on for at least
the last six months.  We take the point made by city councillors Heather
Tanguay and Marilyn Brown that there is already a wide variety of agencies
in the community working to reduce drug abuse and its pernicious effects.
And we completely agree that working together in a co-ordinated manner - in
effect, the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing - is almost
certainly the most effective way of confronting the problem. But wearing his
Drug-Arm hat and seeking to help form an action group surely doesn't mean Mr
Findlay is in some way undermining the council's plans to hold a forum on
the issue for he is, after all, also a councillor himself.  What he says
about drugs existing because the community allows it goes to the heart of
the matter, although one could debate all day whether they are a cause or a
symptom of an individual's problems.

The fact remains there are pushers out there who are making a fortune out of
creating and then supplying addicts, and that addiction is a major cause of
property crime around the region as users seek to finance their habit.

So to that extent it is not hard to understand Mr Findlay's frustration at
being told by the well-meaning but uninformed that P is not a problem, is
not really happening, when it clearly is. And if parents need information
about the issue, as Mr Findlay suggests many do, then the sooner the
appropriate material is circulated the better.  Parental education and
support is, as he says, critical. It may be that in advocating for this as
strongly as he has, Mr Findlay has identified a gap in the range of services
which are already available.

If he has, then it should be filled as soon as possible, and that's no
disrespect to those who are already working in the field.

Crs Tanguay and Brown, in their anxiety over the wheel being reinvented,
seem to be implying that Mr Findlay and Drug-Arm are doing too much of the
lone ranger thing, possibly even to the detriment of the overall fight
against abuse.

It shouldn't be too difficult for the three of them to get together for they
spend plenty of time around the same table already.

Certainly such a get-together would offer some reassurance to those who may
be concerned too many people are going in too many different directions,
which is the last thing those who have the welfare of our young people at
heart need.

One more thing: Anyone who has lived in Palmerston North for any length of
time won't be surprised at the Esplanade rose garden being named one of the
world's best. Perhaps the time is right for Rose City to make a comeback as
the city's brand name. After all it's not every day that we're placed in the
top five in the world for something.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Josh