PACIFIC: Concern over "Ice" discovery in Samoa
Updated
Australia is to work more closely with Pacific countries to tackle drug use and drug trafficking in the region. The announcement follows the discovery by Samoan police, of the drug methamphetamine, also known as ice, at a house in Levili. It's the second time ice has been found in Samoa. The Australian National Council on Drugs says its Asia Pacific Drug Issues Committe is to focus more attention on the Pacific region.
Barbara Heggen
Heggen: While the use of methamphetamines is not believed to be widespread in the Pacific, the recent discovery of the drug "ice" in Samoa is a timely reminder that it is present in the region. The Australian National Council on Drugs has been lobbying the Australian Government for more funds to tackle the issue through its Asia Pacific Drug Issues Committee and says it will be working more closely with Pacific countries over the coming months. Gino Vumbaca is the Executive Director of the ANCD and says research into the problem began in earnest about three years ago.
Presenter:
Speakers: Gino Vumbaca, Executive Director ANCD; Robert Power, Pacific Drug and Alcohol Research Network
Gino Vumbaca: The ANCD commissioned a report to find out what was happening with illicit drug use in Asia and Pacific regions, we have a lot of information available on the Asian countries but very little at all on the Pacific countries, we're hoping to rectify that next year with commissioning a new report, but what we do know is that often drug traffickers will use pacific island countries territories as transit routes in the shipment of manufactured drugs, and what we also know is that there's often leakage of those drugs into the local communities that we have drugs transiting through countries, there's often people trying to make money on the side, and establishing markets along those routes, so that's a real concern because there's no real history of a great deal of illicit drug use outside cannabis in the Pacific island countries.
Heggen: One of the results of the ANCD report was the establishment of The Pacific Drug and Alcohol Research Network. The network's Professor Robert Power says there's no doubt that methamphetamines are being manufatured in the region but that the extent of the problem is not known.
Robert Power: we do know that some of the Pacific islands are certainly used for the production of methamphetamines and there've been a number of recent seizures and that's not surprising because it's very easy to set up methamphetamine production, people talk about methamphetamine labs but in fact you just need a few buckets and some chemicals and it's not exactly rocket science, so it never surprises me to see these seizures, what we don't really know is the nature of the domestic problem and that's something that we're actually trying to address at this moment in terms of getting further funding to understand the situation much more clearly.
Heggen: Gino Vumbaca says it's crucial that governments throughout the region get on top of the situation now because if methamphetamines were to take hold in Pacific countries the situation would be particularly devastating.
Gino Vumbaca: Look we've seen what ice can do in a whole range of countries including Australia and we have fairly sophisticated health and treatment networks here who are struggling to cope with it so, in smaller countries with limited resources the impact would be quite devastating I suspect.
Heggen: Mr Vumbaca says discussions between various bodies in the region have taken place over the last week and further developments are due to be announced in the coming months.
Gino Vumbaca: The Australian National council on Drugs had a meeting last week and a lot of the discussion was on the Pacific and the need to actually improve what we're doing in that area and to have a greater presence and a level of assistance go to the Pacific area, we're hoping to announce some things in the comings actually of next year, we have representatives from all those Pacific island countries and territories and that's who we're working with to get a more formalised and better resourced network established. Methamphetamines have been a problem in Australia, is a problem in Australia, has been and continues to be a problem in New Zealand and in between there's a lot of Pacific island countries who are fearful of what may happen to them if they don't sort of put strategies and programs and policies in place now.
