Australia's New Report on Meth Is Low on New Information

The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) released a report yesterday titled The Australian Methylamphetamine Market. As stated on the report's website it "consolidates open source information with operational and strategic intelligence" related to the trade of ice and all other forms of meth in Australia. This hasn't prevented some news organizations from covering the report's summation of old findings as if they were new.

Unlike the annual ACC Illicit Drug Data report this new document does not, and was not intended to, provide the public with fresh figures. For almost all of its statistics the report draws upon previously published ambulance data, hospital data, the National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS), and certain international reports such as those released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

New information contained in the report is based on "operational and strategic intelligence" and is therefore necessarily general in nature. There are case studies presented but they're mostly non-specific, probably due to ongoing investigations. If they are specific, like the report's breakdown of the town of Mildura's experience with outlaw biker gangs, the cases are more likely than not already public knowledge.

The report mostly concerns the ways in which organized crime has become more involved in meth production and distribution. It outlines how several different organized crime groups from around the world cooperate to bring the drug and its precursors (the chemicals needed to produce it) to Australia.

It further outlines the ingenuity of organized crime in Australia. "Several instances have been identified in which organised crime group members, or their associates, have established a chemical-related business with the intention of appearing legitimate and using it as a cover for purchasing and possessing precursors."

Organized crime increasing their involvement in an illicit drug trade is not surprising. Particularly given the premium prices Australian users pay for methamphetamine.

And some of the seemingly new information, focused on by several news organizations, has been previously announced by various police sources and reported on by the media. Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald referred to the damage meth labs have on the local environment; the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) did that two months ago. The West Australian honed in how Iranian meth is imported through Asia to Australia; Perth Now had that story last month.

Some news organizations are reporting its listing of old findings from other reports as if they were new facts. For instance the Guardian website posted an article which claims "Crime commission report shows 1.3 million Australians have tried methamphetamine in the form of ice or speed." While that statistic can be found in the report, it is contained within a section outlining the findings of the 2013 NDSHS.

The report and the articles about it explicitly suggest that the number of users in Australia is increasing but provide no new data that directly demonstrates such a thing.

As some experts have posited, and was outlined in a VICE article from last year, there is a potential misunderstanding occurring in the interpretation of existing statistics related to the trade and use of methamphetamine in Australia. Because some reporting systems show increased use, many police spokespeople and most news organizations have leapt to the conclusion that this means Australia, in spite of the findings of the NDSHS, necessarily has an increasing number of users.

They either miss or ignore that increased use might be limited to existing addicts/users and that crime and ambulance statistics might have more to do with increased potency. This was the argument made by Paul Dietze from the Burnet Institute in Melbourne last year. The same number of users taking a stimulant of higher purity more frequently is bound to result in added pressure on Australia's hospital, ambulance, and police resources.

The potential hazards of meth are already serious and do not require news media alarmism.

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