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Speaker 1: So the supply chain for drugs apparently quite a lot

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Speaker 1: more resilient than oil. Huge drug halls are being caught

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Speaker 1: at Auckland Airport. Numbers have quadrupled between twenty eighteen and

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, from one point five to six and

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Speaker 1: a half tons. That's at Auckland Airport alone. And the

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Speaker 1: Customs Minister Casey Costello has revealed for the first time

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Speaker 1: that the nine weeks of this first nine weeks of

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Speaker 1: this year, more than twelve tons of cocaine has been

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Speaker 1: intercepted in the Pacific. Glenn Dobson is with the Drug

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Speaker 1: Detection Agency, the chief executive there. Glenn, good morning, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: good morning, right, So lots of it's still coming through.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look there is, and it shouldn't be a surprise

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Speaker 2: to us. I guess won't tell us two things. It

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Speaker 2: tells us that the scale is increasing. But the good

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Speaker 2: thing is also secondly that the border agencies are get

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Speaker 2: better detecting it all.

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Speaker 1: Does it mean that we are getting I mean, is

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Speaker 1: it the tip of the iceberg that we are getting?

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Speaker 1: So if we're seeing six and a half tons that

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Speaker 1: have been intercepted, does that mean we're going to have

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Speaker 1: you know, sixty tons that aren't.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that potential. What it's certainly showing is that, and

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Speaker 2: the paper outlines as well, is that New Zealand's definitely

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Speaker 2: been equally actively targeted by the organized crime groups of

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Speaker 2: the scale. But it also shows that, as the paper

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Speaker 2: recommends closer consultation between the agencies, that greater seizures also

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Speaker 2: means that they're starting to get some great successes as well,

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Speaker 2: which we want to keep working on as a country.

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Speaker 1: They're coming from some odd places, like there was a

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Speaker 1: spake there last year. I don't know if it's still

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Speaker 1: happening now. They're coming in through the airport from Canada.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Canada. It's funny enough. Canada isn't an unusual place

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Speaker 2: for drugs to come through on a global supplied network.

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Speaker 2: Often they'll move in all sorts of places to make

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Speaker 2: it look less obvious where the original destination is from,

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Speaker 2: and Canada is a known country for the global supply

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Speaker 2: of drugs.

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Speaker 1: Do you think this Ministerial Advisory Group is actually going

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Speaker 1: to make changes, like is it going to have an

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Speaker 1: effect that means that we have less drugs that they

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Speaker 1: therefore become more expensive in New Zealand?

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, look, I think what this paper shows

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Speaker 2: is that we as a country and the government start

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Speaker 2: to step up, but the reality is that there isn't

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Speaker 2: a single solution. We need enforcement, we need protection, but

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Speaker 2: we also need to reduce demand, and that's one of

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Speaker 2: the big things. As long as there's a high demand,

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Speaker 2: the supply will keep coming. So that's where the community

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Speaker 2: resilience side of the paper really steps up, and that's

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Speaker 2: where every person in this country needs to step up

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Speaker 2: to try and reduce that demand.

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Speaker 1: In your work, what type of drugs are people are

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Speaker 1: you finding that people are using?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, from the Drug Detection Agencies perspective, we released a

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Speaker 2: quarterly reports a couple months ago and we saw a

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Speaker 2: huge increase in cocaine across the country. We see the

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Speaker 2: same strong usages of methamphetamine, and both of those drugs

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Speaker 2: that we're seeing increases and strong use in are also

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Speaker 2: mirrored in the recent government the steps as well, So

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Speaker 2: certainly we're seeing a strong use of both those drugs.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate your time, Swaning Glenn. Thank you. Glenn Dobson. Drug

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Speaker 1: Detection Agencies.

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