Police to target ecstasy dealers/users
Andrea Close - ABC 666 Interview with Commander Shane Connelly, Deputy Chief Police Officer, ACT
27 October 2005
Alex Sloan: Andrea Close, 666's roving reporter and presenter is out and about this morning. Andrea where are you?
Andrea Close: Hi Alex, I'm hanging out with the boys and girls in blue at the Winchester Police Centre here in Belconnen. There's been a special briefing today. On the weekend we'll see at the University of Canberra, a lot of young people getting together and having a good time…having a party at Stonefest, of course. As the weather warms up we'll be seeing more and more of these festivals and that sort of thing going on, in and around Canberra. Well, the police are telling us today that they are cracking down on the so-called party drugs, particularly targeting ecstasy dealers and users. With me is Deputy Chief Police Officer Commander Shane Connelly. Now why particularly ecstasy, Commander?
Shane Connelly: Good morning Andrea. Ecstasy is a drug which has been misnamed in society; it's been misnamed as a party drug. Our investigations through services right across Australia have indicated that ecstasy regularly contains drugs that are bad for people, not just the ecstasy, but rather quite often the ecstasy will also contain heroin, LSD, anti-epileptics, ketamine and even rat poison. So the drug itself is very, very dangerous and people have a false sense about this drug and about its impacts and its potential impacts. People die of overdoses from it. People, when they don't die of the overdoses, have a lot of health issues. It has been marketed by criminals as being a good drug but there's nothing good about this drug.
Andrea Close: Yes I've heard of the fact that you can buy ecstasy and such drugs and they can be filled with really quite disgusting things. Does it not matter as to where you buy it?
Shane Connelly: Absolutely not. Basically it comes down to supply and demand. These people have no conscience in terms of what they produce. They have no concerns about providing people with drugs containing whatever they can get their hands on. The way it's produced is through clandestine laboratories, where you don't have quality chemists and pharmacists. You have people from outlaw motorcycle gangs and from some of the lower parts of society. They are out there to make a dollar off people. There are no guarantees, there are no refunds, and there's no care.
Andrea Close: Now with Stonefest coming up this weekend, is the AFP planning to be fairly visible? I mean how tough are you coming down on this? Will we be seeing dogs, uniforms, plainclothes cops?
Shane Connelly: This isn't about Stonefest or any festival in particular; it's about the whole of the summer period and it's about the whole year round. What it's about is we have plain clothed detectives, we have our uniformed police, we have our drug dogs, and we go in and around festivals. But not only festivals; car parks, public places, private parties, bars, streets, places where our intelligence indicates to us that there's going to be drug supply, we go. And it's through that methodology that we attack the dealers and we try and prevent this crime.
Alex Sloan: Has there been a particular increase? Why the target now?
Shane Connelly: There's been an increase in amphetamine and ecstasy use right across Australia. I think the statistics are quite clear on that. The target right now is that in the coming weeks in Canberra as the cold disappears and the summer comes on, so do the school leavers, so does the end of year 12, and there are festivals. The thing, Alex, is that these are called party drugs but I want to say this: there's no party in being on a mortuary slab after an overdose, there's no party in sitting in the Watch House after being arrested for drug or alcohol-related violence because of these drugs; there's no party in killing your best friend because you're driving a car either drunk or in a drug-induced state. The party in life is living; the longer people live, the longer the party.
Alex Sloan: And just a last one from me before we go back to Andrea: Canberra has the highest use of amphetamines in the country, is that true?
Shane Connelly: Oh look, that's been reported, I won't get into statistics because . . .
Alex Sloan: But why do you think that is?
Shane: Well, I think that it's very hard to even report that in the sense that it's very hard to report how many people are really using these illegal drugs just on the basis of surveys. But what I would say is that we have a fairly affluent society, we have a society that does like to go out and enjoy itself, and there's nothing wrong with that. But what is wrong is when people get themselves into violence, into sickness or into car accidents as a result.
Andrea Close: Commander Connelly, no doubt you'll be targeting dealers but what about casual users?
Shane Connelly: If people are in possession of these drugs and we see that, they will be arrested, make no bones about it. Our target is the dealer, that's the harm minimisation strategy, but if people have these drugs and we're aware of that, then we will arrest them.
Andrea Close: And what are the fines?
Shane Connelly: The fines are from $5000 to $100 000 in terms of possession or supply, and the jail terms vary from two years to 25 years.
Andrea Close: Okay, so something to keep in mind if you're out and about, and of course the AFP as per usual is asking for help from the public to contact Crime Stoppers if you do witness anything that you think might be a little bit suspicious. Deputy Chief Police Officer, Commander Shane Connelly was with me, Alex.
Alex Sloan: Thank you very much Andrea Close, great to talk to you. Andrea Close out and about and as she said, with Deputy Chief Police Officer Commander Shane Connelly and police announcing that they will target ecstasy dealers and users.
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