Police nab Killer Bees but ignore the killer disease
Candor Trust Media Release

Candor Trust criticises the flurry of arrests of drug biz gang members from the Tribesmen and Killer Bees as wastage of Police resources. It does nothing to address the leader of the pack of drug related harms - the drug driving massacre

The correct reckoning for drug factor crash costs in 2006 is a whopping $878.4 million despite Governments provisional report regarding economic impacts of drug abuse containing a silly season estimate of costs of $53 million.

The correct estimate is based upon quality data concerning the drug related road toll for 2006 as released to The Press from a NZ Police drug driving study last year.

"While they arrest ghettoised kids dealing drugs and slag off their musical ability, larger numbers of kids are dying on the roads after smoking some substance or another than when drunk - yet this has not rated 5 minutes of Police time the last 5 years".

Candor Trust is dismayed the Drug Harm Index Update Report ignored the known facts about drug driving crashes, while offering fictional estimates.

"The members are beyond outraged that using a deceptive report it sought last week to revise a phenomenal massacre (over 140 people yearly) out of New Zealands history books - the Government must do its sums better".

Spokeswoman for the Trust Rachael Ford says Police will not ever stop all drug sales, it is an outmoded A Team approach destined to fail which wastes Court resources and they should focus on the real harm.

"We'd not consider that the way to lower the murder rate is to prevent sales of knives, baseball bats, poisons and guns. Police are therefore wasting valuable time of their own and the Courts on these activities."

Candor suggest Police would be better deployed if they focussed more on facilitating pathways to social change by targeting users (which may include dealers) who are on the path of destruction; most importantly likely drug driving road killers and P'ed up domestic batterers

Several affiliated organisations have made contact this week concerned that the role of P in horrendous offences is once again being minimised in the Governments flawed Drug Harm Index report. New Zealand has experienced a number of incidents of crazies driving into crowds of innocent people.

It is clear from overseas experience that this is usually not a matter that can be placed on the doorstep of excess alcohol consumption. Drug driving is usually in the mix when such psychotic behaviour manifests.

Unfortunately Police have confessed to inadequate investigations of such crimes. They recently told the Transport Select Committee that they seldom ask drug driving suspects to undergo impairment tests - because they have the right to refuse and most will not be keen to assist Police to prosecute them.

Drug crash costs consist of $468,806,000 for 146 drug factor fatalities + $325,414,000 for 578* serious injuries+ $84,180,000 for 1380* minor injuries.

Subtracting the 42.42% of fatal/injurious crashes with drugs as a factor in which alcohol also factored the social cost of crashes with sole risk drug use as a contributing factor in 2006 amounts to $509,472,000.

The debate around drug driving should not be framed around assumptions it is a non issue and to act would be to pick on drug users. Drug impaired driving is a tidal wave of violent crime.

New Zealand should be giving priority to investigating, prosecuting, rehabilitating and removing licenses or clamping the cars of dangerous drugged drivers. Devoting massive resources much neded elsewhere to drug stings on the Tribesmen & Killer Bees is just typical of the nonsense today traceable to the Beehive.

How is the real drug driving social cost estimated

Calculations provided by the Candor Tust use the same values that the Ministry of Transport use to estimate social costs of $3,211,000 per road fatality, $563,000 per serious injury and $61,000 per minor injury (Source - MoT’s The Social cost of Road Crashes and Injuries paper, June 2007 Update).

The assessment also assumes, as per an explanation within the MoT’s alcohol and drug fact sheet that "for every 100 deceased drunk or drugged drivers will be 95 other victims (of such drivers)." Which adds 71 more drug driver victims to the Police deceased driver count of 75 drug drivers killed yearly (the averaged figure from blood tests Police conducted on dead drivers June 2004-July 2006).

*MoT statistics show that alcohol or drugs are involved in approx 2/3rds the number of the serious crashes as they are of fatals, and in 1/3rd the number of minor road injuries as they are in fatalities. Using Polices deceased driver study data for drug crash deaths (as per Austroads definition) to benchmark; drugs factored in 22% of the 2629 serious injuries, and in 11% of the 12,545 minor reported injuries in 2006. (Injury numbers source - MoT Crash Facts Book)

ENDS

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