Australian Crime Intelligence Commission
Illicit Drug Date Report Summary.
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission released their Illicit Drug Report September last year. This report covered national and international trends relating to Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS), Cannabis, Heroin, Cocaine, Clandestine labs and pre-cursors. This post will focus on the key findings in the report relating to ATS, its associated precursors and the statistics on Clandestine labs.
The key points in the report indicated the following:
- ATS detection at the border has decreased for its second consecutive year.
- ATS precursor detection has increased for its second consecutive year.
- Methamphetamine remains the most consumed drug based on Australia’s National waste Water monitoring program.
- PSE ( pseudo-ephedrine ) and ephedrine remain the dominant precursor for methamphetamine.
- Clandestine LAB detection in Australia has decreased for its fifth consecutive yea
Figure 1. Shows Amphetamine drug detection at the border on the declined for its’ second consecutive year.
Out of the 2 countries that attempted to export ATS drugs to Australia China, Hong Kong and India were identified as the 3 main countries of embarkation points to Australia.
Domestically the news appears to be good too, the number of seizures of ATS drugs and also the weight of ATS drugs have decreased for the second year running as per the below graph.
Methamphetamine drug raids on the rise. for two consecutive years
The above graph from the Australian Crime Intelligence Commission shows domestic busts of ATS is also on the decline by weight and number of ATS drugs and the below graph shows that the number of detection’s at the border has increased.
Clandestine Lab detection in Australia as mentioned previously declined for its fifth straight year and the 50% of the labs detected were user addict based labs. See the below graph detailing Clan ab detection in Australia.
Meth Lab Detection decreases for five consecutive years
There are various methods of manufacturing methamphetamine, each method comes with its own hazards and slightly different contaminants. Interestingly the P2P method has more than doubled which makes a lot of sense when taking into consideration that PSE and ephedrine is being stopped at the border. For the period of 2016-2017 method of manufacture in Clan Lab’s were the following:
- Hypophosphorous method of manufacture decreased
- Red Phosphorous method increased
- Nazi Birch Method decreased
- P2P method of manufacture more than doubled.
- Other methods of production of ATS tripled from 7 sites -21 sites
It is good news that Australia is detecting more precursors and ATS drugs at the border. The overall statistics point to a drug problem that the police and border force may be starting to get on top of. For a full copy of the report click DRUG REPORT. For more information regarding this report or you would like to add something email admin@mtkgroup.com.au
