WHEN two deranged ice addicts ransacked her store during a brazen late night robbery in 2013, Kincaid Takeaway owner Lyn Taylor was furious.
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When the store was held up at knife-point the following year, she’d reached breaking point.
Disgusted and disillusioned, Mrs Taylor is on the brink of walking away from the business.
Sadly, her story is not unique.
The pernicious grasp of drug addiction has touched thousands of local lives – the addicts, their loved ones and the victims of their crimes.
That Wagga has a drug problem is not in question.
The staggering haul unearthed during June’s Strike Force Calyx raids lifted the veil on just how hooked the city is.
What leads individuals down the path of drug addiction is as complex as the human mind itself.
Solving our drug abuse crisis is equally as complex.
But at least part of the puzzle must lie in enforcement.
Cr Paul Funnell should be commended for helping kickstart a conversation the community needs to have.
His foray into the issue begs the question of why our other elected representatives aren’t rattling the cage in the same manner.
The left of politics loves to trot out the line that the war on drugs is an unwinnable one.
But does that mean we shouldn’t engage in the battle?
A specialist drug squad, comprising one sergeant and four officers, would help sniff out high-level dealers and interrupt the supply chain.
General duties cops are not equipped for this work.
The NSW Police Association has described Wagga as the most understaffed and overworked command in the state.
There will always be demands on the public purse, but surely there is room in the state budget for a problem so pervasive.
We should never forget a community united wields extraordinary power.
Cr Funnell is bang-on when he says “if enough people stand up, politicians will listen”.
It’s time for us to take a stand.
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