Australian Police Net Record-breaking Drug Bust

Australian Police Net Record-breaking Drug Bust

An Australian Federal Police officer stands guard over some of the seized drugs in one of the largest drug busts in the country’s history

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images

Largest haul of crystal methamphetamine ever recovered in the nation’s history

By Callum Wood • April 7

It was an unassuming pallet of floorboards in a plain warehouse on a normal street in Nunawading, a suburb of Melbourne. But following a tip off, a February sting by Australian police captured nearly 1 ton of crystal methamphetamine (commonly known as ice). The shipment, which police believe originated in Asia, equated to 9 million hits and an estimated street value of $750 million. While authorities are justifiably calling this a serious blow to organized crime, it is also a massive reminder of the crippling epidemic facing Australia.

Only a year ago, police seized a record-breaking, billion-dollar stash of liquid methamphetamine in Australia. Now it is a record-breaking haul of the crystal form. But tons of methamphetamine is making it from illegal labs, through law enforcement, and into the bodies of hundreds of thousands of people. Despite its devastating effects on the human body, ice usage in Australia increased 150 percent between 2007 and 2013. Six years ago, the number of regular users was at 90,000. The latest figures, covering 2013–2014, estimated 268,000 regular users and 160,000 dependent users. Those numbers have likely increased since 2014 as Australians’ appetites for drugs bring them in by the pallet-load.

Australia is experiencing an epidemic. Despite extensive documentation of the horrible effects of methamphetamine usage, there are now far more people who are dependent on these drugs than there were total regular users in 2011. Police and medical professionals are dealing with the effects of this skyrocketing drug usage on what would seem to be a daily basis.

Addicts often experience paranoia, hallucinations and confusion. Combine that with heightened irritability—rage—and you have a volatile concoction: a wild, raging experience known as ice psychosis.

“The violence comes out of nowhere—unpredictable, superhuman strength,” critical care paramedic Julie Hughes told abcNews.

This affliction is widespread, not just in Australia, but in America and other parts of the world. And sadly, as this latest bust reveals, law enforcement is losing the war. For every sting and every arrest the police make, how many more slip through the net? After all, there are 160,000 dependent users out there who are getting their hits on a regular basis.

And if we are losing, how then do we fight back? As is so often the case, man proves himself incapable of coming to a solution.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in the April 2012 print issue:

America is overcome by its drug problem. And “whatever overcomes a man [or a nation], to that he is enslaved.” We don’t talk much about the war on drugs today. People don’t like to talk about losing a war. Many people began to see their own families and children caught up in drugs and felt they needed to tone down their approach. They didn’t want to be involved in a war so close to home.

But this war must be waged, and we need to look to a higher power to fight on our behalf.

Humanly, the war seems a lost cause. Millions are addicted worldwide, with more users becoming enslaved to drugs each week.

Adding fuel to the fire, take a look at the world around us. So many people live in misery and hopelessness. Drugs and the lifestyle they encompass provide many with an easy “out.” But in reality, methamphetamine and other drugs take users from the frying pan to the fire.

Truth is, addiction to drugs is a form of slavery. The users might feel they are in some way paid for their servitude. But the high doesn’t last. The escapism comes to an end.

Right now, hundreds of thousands of Australians are in this slavery. Millions worldwide are in bondage to drugs. Each day, more fall into servitude. Man’s solutions are failing. But, in that same article, Mr. Flurry discusses the only real solution.

There is a way to win the war on drugs. Read Mr. Flurry’s article “What Is True Freedom?” Five minutes of your time may be all it takes to start to see the only real solution to this epidemic that reaches around the Earth.