METHAMPHETAMINE continued to be a significant concern to police and the justice system in 2014.
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The powerful stimulant, commonly known as ice, received significant attention from police as they fought to keep the drug off the streets.
While Albury and Wodonga again grappled with the issue, the problem was perhaps most visible in Wangaratta as police made several significant arrests and a major trafficker was sent to prison.
Aaron Shane Dalton was jailed for a maximum nine years and minimum six-and-a-half years in June for running a drug syndicate which used violence and intimidation to control its members.
Dalton pleaded guilty to trafficking a commercial quantity of ice and ecstasy, arson, false imprisonment, recklessly causing serious injury and reckless conduct endangering a person.
The Melbourne County Court heard syndicate members had been involved in a shooting, assaults and fire-bombings and had targeted vulnerable people.
In one case, a young man who had left the syndicate was tracked down and interrogated in what Judge Michael Bourke told Dalton was “a chilling insight into the methods to which your criminal enterprise was capable of resorting”.
The syndicate, which ran for about a year until September 2012, also fire-bombed two homes as children slept inside and ran a car off a road and into a tree.
Dalton and eight others were arrested as part of a police probe.
Wangaratta police also laid charges against 29 people over two days in September in a major operation targeting methamphetamine supply in the city.
Officers had spent four months gathering intelligence before swooping on properties in Wangaratta, Wodonga, Beechworth, Benalla, Bendigo and Melbourne. In one raid, a Hong Kong national was stopped on a Sydney-bound train at Wangaratta and allegedly found with enough liquid methamphetamine to make a kilogram of ice.
Officers seized more than 20 firearms, ammunition, cash believed to be the proceeds of crime and stolen property worth about $200,000, and some of the raids related to an organised drug syndicate.
The raids and subsequent charges were reflected in crime statistics released later in the year which showed drug charges had almost tripled in the city.
From October 2013 to September 2014, Wangaratta police laid 1022 drug charges, up from 359 in the previous 12-month period.
While the rises were not as significant in Albury and Wodonga, both cities recorded steady increases in drug charges.
Figures released in September showed Albury police had laid 328 drug supply charges in the previous year, an increase from 240.
Drug drivers also became an increasing concern for Wodonga officers as statewide tests increased and testing procedures improved.
It was revealed in September that one in five drivers in Wodonga were testing positive, a rate that far outstripped drink-drivers.
Courts on both sides of the border were again littered with people facing wide-ranging charges linked in some way to ice use.
Magistrate John Murphy took aim in September at the maximum ban he could impose on drug drivers when sentencing Dean James Simpson for driving with ice in his system. He noted he could not disqualify Simpson from driving for more than six months, despite significantly higher disqualification periods for drink drivers.
SIGNIFICANT gaps in methamphetamine treatment services were highlighted in a Victorian parliamentary inquiry in 2014.
The inquiry came to Wodonga in February and heard from drug experts, police officers and people who had been personally affected by ice.
When the final report was released seven months later, it noted there were “many barriers and challenges” facing treatment providers in regional areas.
It recommended better access to services and for local withdrawal beds to be made available for addicts.
Gateway Community Health had told the inquiry there were too few beds in the North East.
Inquiry member and Murray Valley MP Tim McCurdy said it was much harder to stop using ice than heroin.
“We need to work on the lack of beds in regional Victoria,” he said at the time. “It’s 30 to 90 days before you can get off ice.
“When a bed’s in use, it’s tied up for a lot longer time.”
Gateway counsellor Bill Wilson said there was an urgent need for a North East treatment centre.
There were also calls from federal Liberal MP and co-chairwoman of a national parliamentary drug law reform group Sharman Stone for a cross-border drug investigation unit.
Speaking ahead of a public meeting in Wodonga as part of the inquiry, Dr Stone called for a dedicated drug unit focused on region areas and for more detox facilities.
Days later, Albury police commander Supt Beth Stirton raised the idea of formal arrangements between Albury and Wodonga police to tackle the Border’s meth trade.
Supt Stirton raised the idea with NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione during his visit to Albury.
