Oamaru: No meth problem here surely?
Friday, 2 November 2018
Oamaru is a little town with everything. Now it also seems to have a growing meth problem. Martin van Beynen reports.
Bunches of flowers are piled on the footpath just past the Oamaru Creek bridge where Zara Blackie died.
The 14-year-old school girl was killed about 10.40pm on October 23 when she was hit on the main highway through the south of Oamaru by a Holden Commodore car. The driver kept going and handed himself in to police next day.
At the time some speculated the incident was the symptom of an escalating problem. A dairy farm worker posted: 'Meth's actually f--king this town, it's almost to the point I'm scared at the thought of bringing kids up here.'
The funeral for the St Kevin's school student has been held and the 30-year-old driver of the car that allegedly hit Zara has been charged with failing to stop to ascertain injury or death and remanded to November 21.
Whether methamphetamine (meth) was a factor in the accident has yet to be established but from information available so far it appears not. But that won't dispel the feeling the town should get ready to deal with a growing meth problem.
No town in New Zealand is immune from the national scourge that meth (aka P and crack) has become. But Oamaru, with its penguin colony, picturesque harbour, beautiful whitestone quarter and engaged citizens, seems an unlikely place, especially in light of a local economy in which jobs are plentiful and prospects good.
Oamaru, with about 14,000 people, is the main centre in the Waitaki district which has a population of about 21,000. It has a thriving agricultural and horticultural base that is complemented by forestry and fishing.
The Alliance freezing works, in Pukeuri, has about 900 staff when it's in full swing, and the Oceania dairy plant, about 20 minutes drive north of Oamaru at Glenavy, has 70 employees. Another big Oamaru employer is exporter Te Pari Products which manufactures world-class livestock handling equipment. Established employers like Whitestone cheese and Rainbow Confectionery are expanding.
A steady flow of tourists attracted by the town's Whitestone Victorian buildings and steampunk attractions helps keep a hospitality sector busy.
The diversity of the population has broadened substantially in recent years, with a large Pasifika component, especially Tongan, making its presence felt in churches, schools and sports clubs.
Every area has its strugglers and figures for Waitaki for the end of the September year show 500 are on job-seeker benefits, 430 are on supported living benefits and 213 on solo parent benefits.
Oamaru appears a cohesive community and is still small enough, as former cop and then restorative justice worker Derek Beveridge says, 'for everyone to have a handle on what is happening'.
An Oamaru resident for over 30 years, he doesn't pretend to know exactly what's going on with meth but says Oamaru is slowly catching up with the rest of the country.
Unlike Timaru and Christchurch, Oamaru lacks the gang set-up that often goes with P supply and associated problems. Police are anxious to nip any potential gang foothold in the bud.
On October 18 a large police contingent including Armed Offenders Squad members raided a former milk treatment plant on the southern outskirts of Oamaru thought to be a Mongrel Mob pad in the making.
It wasn't and no meth was found but the raid sent a message.
Earlier in the year patched members of the South Auckland gang Barbarian Stormtrooper Aotearoa appeared outside the Oamaru District Court. Police told them to remove their gang patches.
A longtime Oamaru health professional, who asked not to be named, says drug and gang problems have become 'more blatant' in the last year. She understands pure meth (P) is unavailable in Oamaru but meth is prevalent.
'Criminal offending is not reported to the police for fear of retribution. When people start to use meth, generally there is a dramatic change to their behaviour and they can become very erratic and unpredictable.
'To be able to feed their habit they resort to criminal behaviours. This can have devastating effects on families, who are witnessing a rapid decline in their loved ones. There are supports available but the person has to want to engage, which is something we rarely see,' she says.
Police have been talking about the slow spread of the meth scourge into Oamaru for at least a couple of years although they have never discovered a meth lab.
As recently as June, Detective Sergeant Hannah Booth told her local newspaper that meth was easier to get in Oamaru than cannabis. A priority for police, she said, was working with drug users to get them help rather than targeting suppliers.
Booth declined to be interviewed for this story but police sources provided local anecdotes that suggest P has the potential to be a major issue for police and health services.
These include single mothers leaving their kids to go on meth binges, more family violence, pub owners cleaning up numerous empty point bags (bags containing 0.1 of a gram of meth) after a busy night and police searches regularly turning up meth pipes and point bags. One officer fully expects a meth-related death in the near future.
Official police crime figures don't support any dramatic rise in the sorts of crimes associated with addicts desperately needing funds to buy the highly addictive meth. Drug offences, burglaries, frauds and theft vary a little from year to year but nothing suggests anything like a crime wave fuelled by drug offending.
Proceedings (from court action to informal warnings) pursued by Oamaru police for drug offences were exactly the same in the year to August, 2015 as they were in the year to August, 2018. Burglary figures for offenders age 17 and over were lower in the latest year (to August) than in the year to August, 2015.
Yet police suspect many meth-related offences go unreported. People bashed over a drug debt or ripped off by a supplier are hardly likely to make a formal complaint to the police. Because meth is expensive those drugs debts balloon quickly and make reprisals more likely.
Meth has certainly become a feature at Oamaru District Court sittings.
The court, near the Victorian quarter and housed in what looks like a couple of prefabs cobbled together, sits every two weeks.
On Wednesday this week the list has some typically rural crimes like unlawful hunting, contravening whitebait regulations and sexual offending after a bull sale but four men were on the court list for urban-looking alleged meth crimes.
Bearded tattooist Jamie Brian Skudder, 30, appeared in the dock in a camouflage jacket and with a tattoo down the left side of his face.
He was charged with conspiring to deal in the drug, possession for supply and unlawful possession of a pistol. Daniel Leslie Otene, 27, was on the court list for alleged meth dealing offences. Another was a 20-year-old charged with a range of offences including having a meth pipe and unlawfully possessing a firearm. One was a freezing worker caught with a quantity of meth and meth utensils.
The Southern District Health Board runs a drug and alcohol addiction service in Oamaru. As the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, it is one barometer of the problem.
Specialist Addiction Services manager David Jaggard says an increasing number of Oamaru clients report using meth and 'that it is easier and cheaper to obtain than cannabis'.
'Some people report the quality of the drug is poor and as such haven't used it again. As yet we are not seeing many people with methamphetamine as the primary drug causing them problems, however we are seeing more people who have used the drug at least once, whereas this was very uncommon as little as two years ago. Alcohol continues to be the substance that most people are seeking help with.'
Across Otago, meth accounts for less than five per cent of referrals to addiction services, he says.
A picture emerges then, of meth and its damaging effects, playing a bigger part in the dysfunctional side of Oamaru life. The town's advantages provide a less fertile environment for meth suppliers to flourish. If it can't cope, then not much hope exists for others.