Gerald Lynch
Hume police told a community forum that a new approach to drug trafficking was having a positive impact.
At a neighbourhood police forum in Hume on Thursday, December 7, Inspector Paul O’Loughlin spoke to the approach of lessening focus on a small amount of possession and usage of drugs, and taking aim on mid-level trafficking, ensuring the community that a lot of work goes into catching dealers.
There has been a decrease in drug trafficking in Hume according to police.
Despite being aware of the trends and prevalence of recreational use of illicit substances, police said they are more interested in catching it from the start, focusing on traffickers rather than casual users.
Inspector O’Loughlin did note the increases of drug usage in recent times and pointed the finger at numerous causes.
“There’s a lot more mental health issues nowadays, so people are looking for a release from that,” he said.
“The cost of living has played a part… there’s a lot more dance parties happening, and people would rather spend $50 on a pill than $300 on alcohol.
“Drug use is not going away and looking at news and media, you can see there is no end to the amount of drugs being imported to Australia.”
The community echoed its concerns about possibly living amongst drug dealers at the forum, asking the police to search more houses when alarming signs appear.
A local resident spoke about his experience in Craigieburn, wanting more to be done.
“There’s a house we think is drug trafficking,” he said. “We see cars coming in, someone getting out and within two minutes they’re back in their car – multiple cars, all day coming in and out.
“Wearing fancy clothes, driving expensive cars and they’re our neighbours so we know that they don’t have a job. They carry around multiple phones, trying to prevent being caught, these are dead giveaways.”
However, Inspector O’Loughlin said singular claims like this aren’t enough to bust someone who people might think are a trafficker.
“One report doesn’t allow us to go in and bust down the door, people forget we’re not on NCIS,” he laughed.
“So just because you might call the police station with a report like this and not see us arrive, don’t think we’re not following it up.
“It takes multiple reports from multiple sources over a period of time for us to build a case.”
