Pubdate: Sun, 21 Sep 2008
Source: Sunday Star-Times (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2008 Sunday Star-Times
Contact:  http://www.sundaystartimes.co.nz
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1064
Author: Catherine Woulfe
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

THE P PARTY GIRLS

"They use you, definitely.

"They say that they'll always look after you and they'll always
protect you and that sort of thing. But then, when real trouble
actually goes down, they're all just a bunch of little coward scumbags
and everything that's said goes out the window. And then you feel
really stupid."

We will call this woman Naomi. Despite the serious drugs charges she
is facing she is anything but stupid, and spoke to the Sunday
Star-Times only after a written promise that we would protect her
identity. We can say she is in her 20s, lives in Auckland, has a
wealthy family, and that what she told us last week would put her in
prison for a very long time.

Why is she taking the risk?

"Because I feel that it's all too easy for girls to get caught up in
it... To get caught up with the boys and thinking it's all cool and
that they really care for you.

"When any trouble goes down they're not going to be there there's no
loyalty in the end."

Naomi came forward after Capri Clinic chief executive Tom Claunch told
the Star-Times last week that gangs were targeting young girls,
getting them hooked on drugs particularly methamphetamine then using
them for sex and dealing.

(Claunch says the Headhunters are predominant in Auckland's meth
scene, but it is well known that most gangs are involved in the
massively lucrative industry.)

Here's how Claunch says they hook in girls:

"Let's say your sweet little self was out at a party... Somebody
passed along the P pipe, you said 'shoot, I'll give it a try'. Man, it
rings your bell. Then you're scrambling around looking for money to
buy some more rocks and you maybe rip off your parents a little bit.
Ultimately, your resources will begin to run low. About that time the
dealer or someone that you're working with will let you know that if
you'll give them certain sexual favours they'll supply you with drugs.
And you're getting passed around... Maybe you'll be used as a mule
[where dealers get] a young girl who does not have a criminal record
to carry the drugs. Or actually set up laboratories in your garage or
house. You get in deeper and deeper."

Claunch admits he sees only the girls from educated, middle-class
families, because they can pay the fees at Capri, a private rehab
centre in Auckland's Mt Wellington. But he says gangs are targeting
pretty young things from poorer backgrounds too. "Believe me, it's
everywhere."

Naomi says the meth network in New Zealand is "huge".

She hated the drug the first time she tried it; the second time she
was hooked. She ditched her old friends and fell in with a group of
men dealers instead.

After a few years Naomi was smoking half a gram of meth each day, a
habit she says cost about $7000 each month. Whenever she had "stuff"
she would share with the group and when they had some, they shared
with her.

She lit up every 10 minutes. Once she snuck her pipe into a 20-minute
sunbed session and every night she left it ready to go, beside her
bed, to smoke before getting up in the morning.

Naomi never moved in with the men (who had gang connections but were
not patched) but spent about four years sitting on couches, "talking
shit" and smoking meth with them. She saw a few other girls come and
go but says it was only once she got to rehab that she realised they
were all being used.

Naomi briefly dated one of the men (in "one of those drug-haze
moments") but never swapped sex for money or meth, as other girls did.
Prostitution, she says, was "never my path" but when she was roped
into dealing, she never said no.

"I was involved in all of these things that most of the girls get
involved in.

"These boys are all quite young and aggressive, they'll often have
falling-outs with the person who's supplying their drugs and then you
become the go-between, and then you end up doing the dealing for them.

"They might go and get something in bulk but then they make you go and
do all the dishing out to the people down the food chain. I think
that's very common.

"These people feel like your family ... So they'll drop off, you know,
a stolen television in your living room, that sort of thing, and you
don't really think anything of it at the time. But then you're the one
that's going to get in trouble for it."

Naomi says her lawyer is confident the charges against her will be
withdrawn (we can't specify the charges or court proceedings) but she
is frustrated that while she has been dragged through the courts, her
meth "family" is still dealing.

She has considered dobbing in the journalists she knows are using
meth, saying some have lower morals than P dealers and file "hugely
hypocritical" stories about girls like Paul Holmes's stepdaughter
Millie Elder, wine heiress Keita Nobilo and Trelise Cooper's
stepdaughter Nadia Cooper.

"It's always tempting, but it's not going to achieve anything, and you
have to accept that... They can turn around, they have a voice and
they can use it, so you don't really want to piss anyone off."

Naomi is out of rehab and back with her old friends. Her family is
hugely supportive proud of how far she has come and rapt to have her
back instead of "the druggie". They despise the men who left her in
this situation.

Naomi attends either a rehab support evening or a Narcotics Anonymous
meeting once a week to keep her "recovery mantra" strong.

Sometimes she looks at other women her age and envies them; some are
married, others have great jobs or fabulous cars. She seems daunted at
having to rebuild her life, and every now and then she craves the
quick rush of invincibility she got on meth.

But Naomi has relapsed only once. She has been clean for almost a
year. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake