The National Party is promising to crack down on P if it wins this year's election.
Party leader John Key pledged a big campaign against methamphetamines in a speech to a regional conference on Sunday.
Key says he will change the law to give police and the courts more power to crack down on gangs, who he blames for making and selling P.
"We're hearing all sorts of cases of girls as young as 14 or 15 being given P initially to get them addicted to the drug so that they can obviously be brought into prostitution rings and the likes," Key says.
National is accusing the government of dragging its heels on the issue. Its solution includes:
- Increasing police powers to listen in on gang communications and conduct surveillance
- Giving police and local authorities more power to storm gang fortifications and destroy them
- Strengthening the crimes act to make it illegal to be a member of a criminal organisation
- Giving the courts increased sentencing powers for dealing with those involved with gangs
The Police Association is welcoming National's promise to crack down on P if it wins this year's election. President Greg O'Connor says it is about time politicians focused on P and woke up to just how damaging the effects of it are.
"It doesn't matter how many policies you put in place you've got to be prepared to resource them. Press releases are fine but what we're going to be looking for is the resource to do actually something about it. You've got to catch the buggers first," O'Connor says.
But Justice and Police Minister Annette King says National's plans are simply confirming what the government is already doing.
"When we became government the police were busting something like nine clan labs a year - it's up to 200 now," says King.
The minister says the ideas are just a follow on from what the government's current strategy and she would now expect National's support for the recently announced Organised Crime Agency.
Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples has also accused Key of grandstanding on P.
"Over the past year or more, the police have been much more proactive against gangs dealing in P. Only last week I publicly congratulated the police in South Auckland for their successful operation to disrupt a P ring involving two gangs," says Sharples.
He says there have also been other high profile police campaigns targeting P in Northland, Porirua, Rotorua and Tauranga this year.
Sharples also makes the point that not all P dealers belong to gangs, and not all gangs are involved in the P trade.
"The key point in all this is that the police must target the crime - not the patch. That is what they have been doing very successfully, I would say," he says.
"John Key, on the other hand, seems to be deliberately confusing the two issues, drugs and gangs, for political point-scoring".
