\u0100tea editor Liam R\u0101tana wrestles with his life-long dream and the dark reality of the methamphetamine crisis.<\/p>\n
For many years, I thought I knew what my life\u2019s purpose was. I wanted to move home and be a leader for my people. I wanted to be a cowboy, riding horses, hunting, fishing. I wanted to be at my marae, helping our hap\u016b flourish. I was going to be the cool uncle with all the flash toys, teaching my nieces and nephews about life in the Far North. I thought I had it all figured out.<\/p>\n
The younger me viewed the Far North as a paradise that I was privileged enough to whakapapa to. A sanctuary where we would swim in pristine water holes, fish and dive at spots only wh\u0101nau went to, race horses bareback on mudflats, smoke weed, party, chase girls and live life however we wanted. The best thing about it was that it was ours, more than anyone else\u2019s. No one could tell us what to do there except our elders.<\/p>\n
My father was my main connection to Northland. We\u2019d go home every long weekend or school holiday, hui-hopping, visiting wh\u0101nau, and simply spending time in our ancestral home. When I was 16, he passed away and my visits fell away.<\/p>\n
After a few years at university and living abroad, I unofficially took over some work my dad had been doing for our hap\u016b. It was honourable mahi, leading a treaty claim on behalf of our people. At the time, I thought I was ready to lead our hap\u016b and help carry our people to a bright and prosperous future.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh Liam, you\u2019re so young and full of hope,\u201d my cousin said to me during a hui a couple of years ago. She was right. Like many young people, I was hopeful. I was also incredibly ignorant. I had developed a saviour complex, thinking I could change the world. I believed I could lead our people to the promised land. Looking back now, it\u2019s almost laughable. But it also makes me sad.<\/p>\n
Police recently carried out Operation Phoenix, a year-long investigation into alleged manufacturing and supplying of methamphetamine in remote parts of the Far North. (Image: Northland Police).<\/p>\n
A few years before my father passed away in 2012, I found out he was a user of methamphetamine. Initially, I was in denial, which lasted until well after his death.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to make him out to be a bad person, but meth certainly had an impact on him and our relationship. I remember the ranting lectures that would last for hours, the disproportionate beatings and his frequent mood changes. I remember sleeping on couches at people\u2019s houses, or sometimes in our car. I even remember crying once because I didn\u2019t have a house to invite my friends over to.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you hungry? Are you cold? Have you got clean clothes on? Did you sleep with a roof over your head last night?\u201d my dad asked me. \u201cThen what the fuck are you complaining about?\u201d<\/p>\n
It shifted my perspective, but didn\u2019t change the reality of our situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The people we used to visit weren\u2019t necessarily bad people, but they weren\u2019t necessarily good either. They were all kind to me, though. It made me realise that people who live outside of the law aren\u2019t always bad, and people that live within it aren\u2019t always good.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s lots of us that get this. More and more, actually. Meth use, according to wastewater tests, is up, with an estimated 36.6 kilograms consumed in New Zealand a week. It\u2019s a problem everywhere, but the area with the highest per-capita meth consumption? Northland.<\/p>\n
Lots of people grew up like I did, with a colourful family, one where a life of crime and living outside of the law feels normal. The older I got, the more I realised how intertwined my family was with organised crime. My father and many of my uncles and aunties, cousins and wider extended family had \u2013 at one point or another \u2013 lived life outside of the law. It was the norm, not the exception.<\/p>\n
Northland has the highest rate of methamphetamine use per capita of any policing district in the country.<\/p>\n
With that realisation came an understanding that the things some of my family were involved in, the things they had seen and done, were heavy things. Particularly heavy in a spiritual sense.<\/p>\n
The realities of that life came to scare me. I grew cautious with everybody, not knowing who to trust or what to believe. I don\u2019t judge them and I still love all of them, but knowing what I now know it\u2019s hard to feel safe around some of my family, especially now I\u2019m a father. The drug trade can be a ruthless game \u2013 one that you either play to win or don\u2019t play at all. It takes no prisoners.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all chipped away at the certainty I once had about the direction of my life. I still dream of moving home to the Far North but I feel cautious. I know there is a level of understanding amongst the locals of who\u2019s who and what\u2019s what that I don\u2019t possess. I\u2019m not sure I want to know either.<\/p>\n
Could I handle traversing the complexities of these relationships in a tight-knit community? Sure, I could turn a blind eye to some things, but only for so long. There are children walking down busy roads in dirty nappies looking for food. Kids are taking drugs to school, doing deals on behalf of their parents. The crime rate is well above the overall New Zealand rate.<\/p>\n
There are few things I want more than for my son to grow up in the Far North, connected to his culture and whakapapa. But it\u2019s the things that come with that life that worry me.\u00a0 I worry the life I once dreamed of could only ever last so long before methamphetamine caught up to us too. Cousins I used to play with, wh\u0101nau members I used to idolise, people held in high esteem in the community \u2013 so many of them are now involved in one way or another. It seems impossible to avoid.<\/p>\n
I want to believe that this problem will somehow disappear, but I know there\u2019s no magic cure. If you take away a supplier, a new one just steps in to fill the void. It\u2019s an issue we\u2019ve known about for years but despite people fighting back, the problem keeps getting worse.<\/p>\n
Maybe one day it won\u2019t be as big of an issue as it is now. Maybe one day I\u2019ll feel comfortable enough to return home with my family and raise my son where we come from. But for now, we remain guests on whenua we don\u2019t whakapapa to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u0100tea editor Liam R\u0101tana wrestles with his life-long dream and the dark reality of the methamphetamine crisis. For…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[26380,1757,63975,42,1868,13240,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-511084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-atea","tag-drugs","tag-gangs","tag-headlines","tag-meth","tag-methamphetamine","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}