John Key's war on P is a failure

Back in 2009, John Key launched a "war on P", in the form of his Methamphetamine Action Plan. An important part of the plan was regular progress reports, tracking the price, purity and availability of methamphetamine, so we could see if the police were in fact winning.

Today the latest report, for October 2014, was released. As usual, the government has tried to put a positive spin on it. But reading the actual report shows the ugly truth: five years on, there's been no change in those core metrics. Price, purity and availability are all where they were five years ago. Five years of intense policing has had absolutely no effect on anything, no effect on the problem. Which is pretty much the "war on drugs" in a nutshell: an endless, pointless waste of time and money which changes nothing.

I don't know what the answer to P is, but its very clear that this isn't working. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity; time for a new approach.