DRUGS — REGIONAL
AREAS
892. Hon COLIN TINCKNELL to the minister representing the
Minister for Police:
The latest Australian Criminal
Intelligence Commission report on drugs revealed that regional WA has the
highest rate of illegal drug consumption of any regional areas in Australia.
(1) What is the government doing in
regional areas to combat illegal drug use?
(2) What is being done in fly in,
fly out areas to reduce illegal drug use?
Hon STEPHEN DAWSON
replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question. The following information has been provided to me
by the Minister for Police.
(1)–(2) The
latest Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission report indicates an 11 per cent
drop in methamphetamine use in regional WA since the previous report, well
below the peak of regional WA's meth consumption in August and December
2016. This government has provided funding of more than $100 million from 2017–18
to 2020–21 for the meth border force, as part of the meth action plan,
to provide 100 extra police officers and 20 specialist and support staff to
disrupt the supply of meth. In addition, new technologies such as the meth
truck, the TruNarc drug detection device and portable mobile phone downloading
devices are deployed across the state to support mobile drug interception
activities. The Western Australia Police Force advises that it has been
targeting known distribution points within both the metropolitan area and
regional Western Australia, with a record 1.56 tonnes of meth intercepted
during the 2017–18 financial year, most of which was recovered in
regional WA. Operations to disrupt meth drug rings will continue across WA.