Nimbin facing 'overdue' cop crackdown

[Frazz]

"Marijuana capital Nimbin facing 'overdue' cop crackdown"

 

By Samantha Williams

 

July 07, 2007 01:00am

Article from: The Daily Telegraph.

 

 

* Police 'had enough' of blatant drug-dealing

* Force doubled to cope with "rising crime"

* New York-style "broken windows" approach

 

IT'S the town that has continued to break the law with its laissez-faire attitude to drugs.

 

But after years of open drug dealing on the streets as well as a rising tide of violence, police have had enough.

 

Local Area Commander Bruce Lyons, the man in charge of policing the far North Coast town, is now taking a zero tolerance policy to drugs.

 

He is fed up with the decades-old drug culture, which has brought with it a series of social problems including high rates of mental health and homelessness.

 

After petitioning the Government for more resources, Superintendent Lyons will be boosting the police station's staff from four to nine officers in the coming months in a push to drive the drugs out of town.

 

The crackdown has earned the ire of some residents - who claim the bigger force is overkill for a town with a population of 500.

 

But Supt Lyons was adamant a New York-style "broken windows" approach is the only way to smash a culture he said is destroying social order in Nimbin.

 

"I'm passionate about fixing the problem because, unless we deal with all the social problems, the town will continue to see the consequences of drug addiction," Supt Lyons, who has been in charge of the far North Coast for three years, said.

 

"I have been getting a lot of criticism about this approach but there is a silent majority in Nimbin talking to me saying they want change and change is what needs to happen."

 

For years gangs have intimidated and assaulted those police who have been shutting down the drug dealing.

 

Five security cameras were installed along Nimbin's main street in 2005 at a cost of about $40,000.

 

But that only pushed drug pushers into the back alleys where they use friends as police lookouts while they continue to peddle drugs.

 

Undercover police have conducted many operations in Nimbin over the years but Supt Lyons wants to let drug dealers know police will now be on the streets.

 

During the Mardi Grass festival in May 109 people were arrested for drugs and bad behaviour.

 

Of those, 57 were cautioned while the rest faced court and criminal charges.

 

"In the past, undercover drug units have turned (Nimbin's drug culture) upside down and left, then its reverted back to normal," he said.

 

"I want local police to deal with the problem and become part of the community because if they do that they will get the respect.

 

"It's not about police continuing to use the law to fix the problems of Nimbin, its going to take a lot more than that (to end the drug culture)."

 

Author:Samantha Williams

Date: July 07, 2007 01:00am

Source: News.com.au

Copyright: Copyright 2007 News Limited

[pipeman]

the only reason there is a drug problem in Nimbin is because cannabis prohibition attracts other drug users to the area, because they can sustain their habit by dealing pot. The solution is obvious, but no, instead they want to spend $40,000 on street cameras and god knows how many hundreds of thousands a year increasing the police force to 9 officers. What do police officers get paid these days? Lets call it 60K a year per officer including all the equipment and facilities they will need, and IMO it would probably be more than that. So an extra 5 officers at 60K = 300K a year. And for what? Pure insanity. I'm sure the townpeople of Nimbin could make much better use of that money if given the chance.

 

If they are really concerned about violence they should close the pub, but no, the government collects tax on the sale of alcohol, so feel free to drink yourself silly.

Edited July 7, 2007 by pipeman

[Indycar]

I dunno weather i'd be pointin' the finger at the pub, be more inclined to point it at the little grots sellin' dope to support the meth habit.

 

Nimbinites are partially to blame for being too relaxed with the other drugs in town. If they stomped on it before it became a problem, i'd tend to think they would'nt be in this predicament that they got now. It only takes a handful of grubs to fk things up...

[Al B. Fuct]

Nimbin would have been abandoned long ago without cannabis culture. Of course, the smackies and now the speed freaks make pests of themselves, but the solution isn't more heavy-handed policing. Until you have one cop watching every person in Nimbin, the drug trade will continue- just like it does everywhere else on earth. Prohibition has never worked and still doesn't.

 

Nimbin could use a Christiania style tolerance of cannabis with community policing of hard drug dealers. Would be self-sustaining and cost next to nothing, except when citizens need police intervention to bust a recalcitrant hard-drug dealer who won't catch the clue and hit the road. Community intolerance of hard drug dealers can in effect put hard drug dealers under the supervision of >100 people.

 

If cannabis culture is squashed in Nimbin, you can consider Nimbin squashed, too. Nimbin's small biz and ppl they employ will simply shut shop for want of foot traffic.

[WantDaChronic]

"I have been getting a lot of criticism about this approach but there is a silent majority in Nimbin talking to me saying they want change and change is what needs to happen."

ofcourse they want things to change, other drugs have invaded nimbin and the locals want them and all the problems associated with them gone. the police are just throwing in marijuana as well because it is the drug that has made nimbin famous and is currently illegal in australia. its not like the locals want the police to target cannabis because they know full well like al. b fuct said

If cannabis culture is squashed in Nimbin, you can consider Nimbin squashed, too. Nimbin's small biz and ppl they employ will simply shut shop for want of foot traffic.

 

if the police want to see nimbin go to shit, they should take out the mush easier to bust post users and dealers which they'll do instead of focusing on the peddlers of harder drugs. this will result in the businesses leaving nimbin as well as 3/4 of the population leaving behind all the smack and meth heads to run the town

[godonacid]

not to mention all the tourist dollars that go into that place, apparently years ago they tried an Amsterdam style selling from the coffee shops, even the NSW police commissioner liked the trail and it cleaned the streets up in Nimbin in a couple of hours, as soon as people realised they could go and get good pot with out supporting the junkies they did, then nsw got a new police commissioner and its been all down hill ever since, apparently one of the first things he did was to shut down the trail and get the junkies back on the street and back into street dealing again.

[67Special]

He is fed up with the decades-old drug culture, which has brought with it a series of social problems including high rates of mental health and homelessness.

wouldn't a high rate of mental health be a good thing?

 

The crackdown has earned the ire of some residents - who claim the bigger force is overkill for a town with a population of 500.

 

I have been getting a lot of criticism about this approach but there is a silent majority in Nimbin talking to me saying they want change and change is what needs to happen."

This guy should be drug tested! He won't listen to people who openly criticise him in public, yet he can hear a 'silent majority'

 

Wasn't Nimbin just a couple of dairy farms before the hippies settled in? Without the cannabis culture, what'll be left ...apart from 9 coppers & 5 cameras

 

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

Is the violence as real as the cops make it to be in the aertcle? I mean I haven't had anyhing to do with Nimbin now for over a decade, but when I was a resident of Brunswick heads, I took my wife and kids to Nimbin for different special day evets, to show them my old "Stomping ground" if you like from when I was a kid, and I never once felt any safety issues for my family.

I realise the scene is well and truly different there now, and that's why I ask, is the violence overstated or not?

 

Nimbin's a melting pot, a "falout" of a society with harsh drug laws. The heroin addicts can live in Sydney and break into chemists at night, or can go to Nimbin and try and make a living that for my part is as honorable as any, that is the growing and selling of pot. That's based on the notion that's what they might do to finance themslevs I mean.

 

While society continues to force people who have become disadvantaged by addiction to hard drugs, by sloth type lifestyles, or by accident, meaning pain killer addiction gone wild, experimenting lost control...it makes no dif. If they're forced into subculturre, an "Us and Them" mentality, then squalar scenes will erupt. Close Nimbin, and it'll erupt elsewhere, or everywhere, it's symptoms, not problems.

 

What a hypocrite world but hey, peope shocked and dismayed at people dropping out, yet they run a bus tour from Lismore for old blue rinse ladies to look at the freaks, shake their heads and make "tisk, tisk" noises from their window seats. Well they used to run a tour anyway, I assume they still do, they do the same for kingscross don't they? I was changing buses in Sydney one night when I was a teenager, a couple hour wait in the middle of the night at the greyhound terminal, so they ran small bus tours of kingscross, but you couldn't get off the bus, same thing..

People (yuppes) flock to the NSW Nth coast every weekend, try getting a booking to take ya kids to their old home, and you need to book 12 months in advance. And why? The culture that years of peope thumbing their nose at the establishment has created has everyone lieing up to be associated with the scene, but not too closely..Last time I went to the Brun hotel, I couldnt finda local, everyone stays away now because they feel in a m inority to mercedes owners and lawyers on "Hogs".

 

Sorry, failry broad shot at the problem, but geee I hate the way society loves to have it's rebels, and despises them in the same breath.

 

I reckon Nimbin's been a great experiment in humanity, and like I siad, this is how I remember the place and I must be way out of date now.

I remember after "a current affair" and all the other cheque book news shows called for a clamp down in Nimbin years ago, they put a few extra cops in town. The locals up there organised a team to watch the cops, they followed them everywhere, and reported back to the pub on the activities of the police. If they thought they were spending too much time watching a resident, they told the resident and stuff. This isn't what the cops are calling harrasment by the locals are they?

 

Anyway, been a long while since I had anything to do with the place, so anyone living there, or have much to do with town...really, is violence a problem? I do't mean people hassling tourists to buy dope, annoying as it is. I mean violence.

 

thanks

rob

 

PS "Broken Window policy", man I never thought I'd live to see the time we took such a horrible approach to social problems in Australia. The "broken wondow policy" saw crime drop overnight in New York alright, but not the way it ought to be. A decedantly rich society like New York, being aggrevated by poverty, and the lack of social assistance to those in need, resulted in crime...simple. The imprisonment of entire families for vagrancy, emprisoning the parents, and fostering the children, by the bus load was just one way they "solved" their problem. The Federal government preparing to stop welfae payments for families who don't live the way Howard wants them to, talk of broken window policies to change the social content of a district, ...man this is getting crazy. I assume everyone knows the concept of this policy, but just incase someone doesn't, it means the police will prosecute for every offence. Jay walking, parking, sleeping in public places, intoxicated in public, breaking a window in an abandoned factory (where the name is taken from) will be prosecuted to the fullest extent. Myor juilliani said he wanted people prosecuted with no difference for the law broken. Ie, He wanted a person throwing a rock through a window of an old abandoned building to be charged as if he was setting fire to the place. He believed broken windows being unprosecuted, people not being hammered for j walking and such things caused contempt for the law, and is what fueled people to commit more serious crimes, such as smoking pot, or doing smack or whatever they're whinging about. They see civil disobedience to even the most minor of laws is evidence of a larger disrespect for crime.

Coupled with a three strikes and ya out policy, people in New York got long, long jail terms for a triple offence of jay walking, sleeping in ya car..etc, simply because they were targetted as undesirables, and wanted "off the streets". It's outright victimistion.

 

It began the same way Cairns and Darwin started their similar tactics on Aboriginal issues about the same time. They gave everyone a free one way bus trip out of the region before a certain date, and after that, every little thing you did was fair game. I mean things we all do without thinking.

[WantDaChronic]

if the police start acting like that in nimbin they'll end up with a ghost town

[Al B. Fuct]

The 'broken window' policy refers to a theory that if a broken window is not repaired in a timely fashion, vandals will be attracted to break more windows. It is supposed that timely repair while the problem is small dissuades further vandalism. 'Broken window' then leaps on to other problems like litter and drug use. It's straight Barney Fife- 'We got ta nip tha problem in the BUD!!' Go after the potheads and the smackies/speedfreeks go away, in theory... cos after all, drugs is drugs and drugs-r-bad, mmmmmmmmkay?

 

From the ever-reliable Wikipedia entry Fixing Broken Windows:

 

[...] based on an article titled Broken Windows by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, which appeared in the March 1982 edition of The Atlantic Monthly [1]. The title comes from the following example:

 

"Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

 

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars."

 

A successful strategy for preventing vandalism, say the book's authors, is to fix the problems when they are small. Repair the broken windows within a short time, say, a day or a week, and the tendency is that vandals are much less likely to break more windows or do further damage. Clean up the sidewalk every day, and the tendency is for litter not to accumulate (or for the rate of littering to be much less). Problems do not escalate and thus respectable residents do not flee a neighborhood.

 

The theory thus makes two major claims: 1) further petty crime and low-level anti-social behavior will be deterred, and thus 2) major crime will be prevented. Criticism of the theory has tended to focus only on the latter claim.