AUG 24: Dunedin is awash with the party drug ecstasy, which is readily available in city bars, police say.
Police are "astounded" at the amount of the class B-controlled drug available in the city after busts of three separate selling operations this month, but insiders are amazed it has taken police so long to catch on to the party-drug scene.
Operation Harbour - a seven-month investigation into the supply of the drug into Dunedin - culminated this week with 57 arrests and the seizure of hundreds of ecstasy pills with the street names "Counter Strike", "Blue Star", "Flame Boy" and "Speedy Gonzales".
Operation head Detective Sergeant Graeme Scott, from the Dunedin CIB's organised crime squad, said police seldom came across ecstasy because it was used by a "different crowd".
Criminals, such as burglars and thieves, were often involved with cannabis and methamphetamine, but the ecstasy crowd was generally a younger, social group. As such, ecstasy was something Dunedin police had not previously targeted.
"[We have] never put any time into [it] and, when we did, we realised it seemed to have been a scene within Dunedin for ... about two years. The reality of it is we didn't know about it and it could have been going on much longer." But people inside the Dunedin dance scene said they were surprised police were unaware how easy it was to get ecstasy. A 22-year-old who regularly goes to nightclubs said it was easy to get ecstasy pills, which sold for $65 to $85 each, in most nightclubs.
Everyone knew someone who could get them a pill, she said. It was common knowledge among those in the party scene that sellers were usually the middle-man for suppliers who got the drugs in Auckland.
Ecstasy had become more readily available in the past two years, she said. At certain venues, "you ... look around [and] everybody's off their face".
Another dance-floor regular said the party-drug scene had been alive and well in the city for four or five years. Both said people selling the pills were pretty casual about making the deals, and some even bragged about it.
Det Sgt Scott said it was "frightening" how willing young people were to give or sell controlled drugs to their friends, which made them drug dealers.
"It is astounding." The other issue was the people selling it knew which pills were more pure than others, he said.
"When we analysed the pills, the stuff they were saying was the good ecstasy actually had methamphetamine in it. That is the risk you take; you don't know what you are buying." Operation Harbour ended yesterday with the final four of 57 arrests - one in Queenstown, one in Dunedin and two in Auckland - after the execution of more than 70 search warrants by 80 police from Invercargill, Queenstown, Dunedin, Oamaru and Balclutha together with Customs staff.