Bay in grip of P trade: Police | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

Organised crime groups which make and sell the destructive drug "P" are not just big-city operations - Hawke's Bay is in their grip as well.

"Very much so," Napier CIB Detective Emmett Lynch said today, adding that nowhere was immune as the trade was lucrative to too many people.

It was a trade he said the public could play a huge part in fighting - by "making the call to us".

Last night in the Paul Holmes-fronted television documentary Chasing the Ghost, the scale of the methamphetamine trade and the effects it had on people in its grip were graphically, and at times emotionally, laid out.

Former detective and anti-drug campaigner Mike Sabin said the battle facing police was huge and urged more resources be thrown at fighting what law and health agencies described as a "plague".

"We are doing a hell of a lot," Mr Lynch said, adding that co-ordinated targeting of the drug business - pushed at police and Government level - had risen significantly.

"It is a major problem that affects so many areas - crime, mental health, driving - it is huge."

The lucrative nature of the P trade made it a challenging fight for police, Mr Lynch said.

"There is so much more input to fighting this today but it will be a battle for several years to come," he said.

The public, he said, had a major role to play in reporting suspected P labs and people suspected of dealing or using the drug.

"We have a confidential Crimeline and people are assured of anonymity - people know if something is wrong and if something suspicious is going on. We need them to call us," Mr Lynch said.

He said harder drugs were much more readily available these days and he had seen more and more young people involved, and the effects it had on them.

"You see them years later and they are hard to recognise.

"The gangs will initially provide it for free - get them hooked - then they've got a customer."

The result, he said, was the "customer" would then do favours for the gang to pay off the drug debts.

That usually meant getting others to use the drug.

Mr Lynch said the P trade today was like the cannabis trade several years ago.

"You get one supplier and another one will fill the void because the demand is there."

While there had been moves to limit or halt the over-the-counter sale of pseudoephedrine (used in P manufacture), Mr Lynch said the "cooks" would experiment with other ingredients as substitutes.

Like other districts, Hawke's Bay had set up a dedicated serious crime unit which targeted the organised gangs involved in the drug trade.

The unit busted a P lab in Taradale last month and was involved in a major operation targeting the eastern region last March which resulted in 260 drug and firearm-related arrests.

* If P has affected the life of you or your family we'd like to hear from you. Call the chief reporter on 8730810.