Drug trade: The hard sell - making drugs match
market
19.04.05
If all the varieties of illicit drugs in the world were lined up for
sale, they would easily outnumber the wines in your local
supermarket. When it comes to choice, drug users have never had it
so good.
New substances are rolling off secret production lines at an
exponential rate.
American chemist Alexander Shulgin says Western scientists knew of
only two psychedelic compounds 100 years ago: cannabis and
mescaline. By the 1950s, the number was 20. Now there are well over
200, he told the New York Times this year.
Shulgin should know. Devotees call him Dr Ecstasy in honour of the
drug MDMA he introduced to the world in the 1970s.
Throughout a remarkable career which has made him an idol to the
dance culture and a villain to the law, the 79-year-old Californian
figures that he has created about 200 psychedelic substances,
assiduously cataloguing their chemical make-ups and effects.
Each of the drugs Shulgin has produced, he has tested on himself and
his wife, Ann, a writer and researcher who was born in New Zealand.
His aim has been to discover tools to explore the human mind in
psychotherapy. He has done nothing illegal because the substances he
concocted did not exist until he produced them.
Inevitably, his compounds have been snapped up and exploited by drug
dealers and manufacturers. His writings have become best-selling
cookbooks in clandestine laboratories around the world.
Drugs are like any other commodity. They are subject to many of the
same processes as the stock that lines the shelves at The Warehouse,
Briscoes or on High St: product development, marketing strategies,
pricing controls, the battle for market share. But for these
products the anti-market forces are the law.
So when a new product is developed, those in the business look to
exploit it. Why wouldn’t they, when there is an insatiable market?
Shulgin’s creations cross the New Zealand border regularly as others
profit from his life’s work. Examples make their way to the
Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) where a team
specialises in analysing the array of drugs on the New Zealand
market and identifying any new ones.
About 1500 cases a year arrive at the ESR’s Auckland centre, two
hospital block-like buildings. Substances seized by the police or
Customs and sent for analysis can range from shipments several
kilograms heavy to deals in small snaplock bags.
Each is treated in the same, careful manner: removed from the bag,
described and weighed. Then the substance undergoes several tests
designed to chemically identify it.
The most common tool is called GCMS, a two-step process which
combines a separation technique and fragmentation of the molecule to
produce a characteristic pattern for a specific drug.
The testing process is scientific and clinical but the results can
be professionally exciting for those involved. One senior scientist
described how for more than 25 years she had watched new products
and combinations emerge.
Because of the nature of her work, and the nature of the people
involved in the drug business, she was spoken to on condition of
anonymity. Her role means she is well-placed to spot the early
trends.
She has tracked the methamphetamine explosion and regularly handles
new designer drugs. Often they are similar to known drugs, with
small changes to the molecular structure.
MDMA or Ecstasy, for example, has a new sister substance called MBDB.
A development of methamphetamine has seen the creation of a new
substance called dimethylamphetamine.
In the past four months, ESR analysts have also detected a worrying
combination of the popular party pills with illicit drugs. Party
pill ingredients have been mixed with methamphetamine or MBDB. In
one case, scientists found one batch of green pills contained nine
substances ranging from MDMA to the party pill ingredient BZP to
ketamine to caffeine.
The senior scientist we spoke to has observed how the drugs are
constantly evolving, even if only in the packaging. The icons and
designs on pills and tabs change with the times - strawberry
patterns one day, Simpsons characters the next.
"It’s a fashion industry, absolutely," she says. And like the
fashion industry, it has attracted the attention of economists
everywhere.
Economist Dr Chris Wilkins has made the drug market his main area of
study since 1997. He completed his doctorate in economics at Waikato
University in 1999, studying "violence in cannabis transactions",
and now works at Massey University’s Centre for Social and Health
Outcomes Research and Evaluation.
Last year, he produced a major report on the socio-economic impacts
of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS: substances such as speed,
methamphetamine and Ecstasy). For the first time, the scale and
shape of the trade was exposed.
The report revealed that the high profit margins available to
suppliers and dealers of methamphetamine and Ecstasy was a factor
driving the spread of the drugs.
Motorcycle gangs and international smugglers were early market
leaders, pursuing the big money on offer.
Dollars soon drew in others from the "general criminal fraternity"
and from the wider community.
The report revealed how the marketing and sale of methamphetamine
changed. Initially, when it hit the dance party and club scene, its
availability was tightly controlled.
But as its coolness faded and dealers looked for fresh markets, it
became more widely distributed. Call it the drug equivalent of the
trickle-down effect.
Whereas once meth was highly priced - going for up to $1000g and
sold in a tight circle - now it was on sale in tinny houses for $20
to $50 packages called "clicks".
Teenagers, people on low incomes and cannabis smokers had been
identified as untapped markets and were being targeted. Users had
become sellers too, earning an average of $24,000 a year from their
sideline dealing.
The report revealed worrying potential market trends. ATS users
tended to experiment with other drugs - high-potency hydroponic
cannabis, LSD and magic mushroom, among others. These high levels of
what researchers call "poly drug use" was an early warning sign of
the potential for increased demand for other drugs such as cocaine
and opioids. It could also fuel an intravenous drug problem.
Wilkins, a quietly spoken, bespectacled academic, has watched the
methamphetamine epidemic in particular with close interest. His
observations about what has spurred and sustained the demand are
interesting; his view on how the cycle will be broken is
controversial.
"If you ask young people now how cool P is, they’d probably say it’s
a little passe compared to 2000-2001," says Wilkins. But amphetamine
sits with the social-economic times.
Today’s lifestyles demand that people work hard and play hard.
Amphetamines make this easier.
"It ties in in terms of the need to be productive at work and also
socialise long hours."
Hence, when P hit the market, it appealed to those in the dance
scene, professionals and parents alike. It spread to wide sections
of the community, made criminals of people who had clean records,
and made criminals spiral into even more extreme behaviour.
Traces of drugs were found in one in three trucks at a checkpoint at
the Auckland port late last year, confirming police suspicions about
high methamphetamine use among drivers believing it kept them alert.
It was popular in prisons, too - testing in jails discovered 62
cases of methamphetamine use among inmates last year.
Wilkins believes we are still experiencing the epidemic, although
there is no longer the rapid growth in popularity that there was in
the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Another factor driving the cycle is New Zealand’s naivete when it
comes to hard-drug problems.
"There’s not much of a social experience of cocaine and crack, which
are very close to amphetamine, so there’s not a societal
understanding of addiction and psychosis in New Zealand," says
Wilkins.
How will it end? Wilkins believes the biggest factor in diminishing
drug epidemics comes from the demand side "when people decide pretty
much this is an old drug and not cool".
"If you look at cocaine and crack in the US, they put a lot of money
into supply reduction and enforcement and it really just had a
dampening effect.
"Whereas in the late 80s, even though there was no change in
enforcement, suddenly demand just dropped off."
Not that he is advocating any slackening off in drug enforcement.
It’s just that people should not have unrealistic expectations.
"Drug enforcement is a key part of dealing with the problem but it’s
not going to be the cure-all."
How a potent drug got to NZ
Drugs responsible for a modern-day epidemic in New Zealand had their
origins as a treatment for hyperactive children.
Amphetamine, said to have been synthesised by a German chemist, was
available as a prescription-only pill in 1937 for Parkinson’s
disease, depression and narcolepsy, as well as wild children.
During World War II, Japanese war factory workers were fed
methamphetamine pills to help them work harder. It triggered an
epidemic of drug addiction.
Eventually, Governments around the world banned the use of
amphetamines but the US had more epidemics in the 1960s and 1980s.
In New Zealand, the first clandestine laboratory manufacturing
amphetamines was found in Napier in 1981, but it was apparently a
one-off. Through the late 1980s, there were rumours about the Road
Knights gang operating an illegal lab in the South Island, but it
was not until 1996 that the first large-scale illicit operation of
the modern era was uncovered (in Cheviot, Canterbury).
While US motorcycle gangs were producers of amphetamines throughout
the 1980s, their New Zealand colleagues had been slower into the
market. In the mid-1990s, two Americans with knowledge of how to
cook methamphetamine came here and passed on the skills, taking
advantage of the availability of ingredients, including ephedrine
from across-the-counter cold pills.
In the meantime, there had been importations of ready-to-consume
amphetamines. Satan’s Slaves gang members importing LSD during the
early 1990s were found with a small amount of meth, although they
probably had it for personal use.
Hells Angel sergeant-at-arms Andrew Sisson was caught importing
methamphetamine in 1993.
Six years later, he was convicted of conspiring to manufacture
methamphetamine.
By 2000, New Zealand was in the grip of its own meth epidemic and
it’s not over.
Drug trade: The gangs are all eyes and
all ears
19.04.05
The job of policing organised crime and catching drug
smugglers is surreal and dangerous. It is its own world,
with odd rules of engagement and grudging respect. There is
a recognition that although the hunters and the hunted are
enemies, each has a job to do.
But the engagements can be a matter of life and death.
Several years ago, three motorcycle gang members confronted
a man they (rightly) suspected was an undercover cop. Over
several hours, they threatened him, held a knife to his
throat and interrogated him.
In the end, they let him go but only because they could not
verify their suspicion. Besides, one officer reasons, they
would have been in a difficult position had they confirmed
their victim’s identity. To kill a policeman would be to
declare war on the biggest gang of all.
Within the agencies whose job it is to crack the drug rings,
frontline officers are committed and ardent. Higher up the
chain, the policing of gangs and drugs provokes fervent
political debate.
Justice Minister Phil Goff has been eager to act and be seen
to be acting, introducing law changes to add to the law
enforcement armoury.
"The advantage New Zealand has in terms of its greater
geographical isolation, sea borders and smaller size is that
we haven’t had the same degree of organised crime as other
countries have had," says Goff. "That’s not to say we
haven’t had organised crime here - we have and we do. I want
to send the message that this country has as tough a
legislation as any other country in the democratic world."
Out on the streets, investigators know organised crime has
laid its foundations already, and that the lengths being
taken to elude the law are sophisticated. Gangs have become
more canny, employing their own intelligence tactics to
counter police.
In the course of this investigation, the Herald endeavoured,
through official channels, to obtain classified police
reports. We were told that, for on-going intelligence
reasons, it would not be possible. The Herald has learned
one of the reports found its way into the hands of the Hells
Angels several years ago. Also discovered in raids on one
gang member’s properties were brochures on
counter-surveillance, night-vision equipment, and
photographs of police.
Experienced investigators say gangs have become ever-more
determined to avoid detection. Meeting places are chosen to
minimise the risk of electronic eavesdropping. A sign found
in the Highway 61 headquarters declaring, "This bar is
bugged so **** up" is not uncommon.
Chemists too have been inveigled into the game of cat and
mouse. As the law moves to clamp down on particular drugs,
chemical manipulation takes place to create new designer
drugs not captured by the stricter classification.
Methamphetamine, for instance, was made a class A drug in
May 2003, attracting a life sentence for anyone convicted of
importing, manufacturing or supply. But Institute of
Environmental Science and Research scientists have
discovered at least one new drug, dimethylamphetamine, which
has similar properties but is class C.
The party pill experience has shown that it is possible to
evade legal restrictions entirely. While BZP-based party
pills are sold unrestricted in New Zealand, they are illegal
in the US and in two states of Australia.
Police and Customs officers are frustrated that the legal
process takes a comparatively long time to classify new
drugs seen as emerging problems.
They advocate a system used in other countries where new
drugs are subject to a holding classification until their
legal status can be properly assessed.
"The US and the British have the holding classification
while in New Zealand it’s a free-for-all until it’s
scheduled and that could be a few years and by then the drug
has a foothold," says one senior police intelligence
officer.
The Ministry of Health’s chief public health adviser, Ashley
Bloomfield, says New Zealand’s process is "robust", although
it does not have emergency procedures as has the United
States and Britain.
It took time to collect data for the Expert Advisory
Committee on Drugs to consider but this usually took "months
not years, particularly if there is a sense of urgency as
there often is around these substances".
Regulations already cover derivatives, where subtle changes
are made to already classified drugs.
The debate over the drug classification system reveals how
New Zealand has become ensnared by the globalised drug
market.
International drug lords, in tandem with willing New Zealand
business partners in the gang scene, have seen to it that
New Zealand is fully part of the worldwide market.
Five years ago, New Zealand was largely untapped when it
came to designer substances. The explosion of P, Ecstasy,
and an array of pills has demonstrated that there are many
willing consumers. Shrewd operators here and overseas have
made a killing. The cost to society is mounting.
Where will it end? Who knows? That’s business.
