WA police chief signals soft line on cocaine

Wealthy cocaine abusers would be spared a police crackdown because they were not responsible for the violence associated with street-level drugs like speed, Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said yesterday.

The controversial policy means detectives will not target Perth's cocaine barons despite growing evidence of a booming trade in the illicit drug among the city's corporate set.

Mr O'Callaghan yesterday admitted that cocaine was a problem in WA but said police resources were better used to crack down on drunks and users of street-level drugs like methamphetamine and ecstasy.

His comments came after an investigation by The West Australian newspaper found evidence of widespread use of cocaine at trendy bars and clubs frequented by the wealthy St Georges Terrace bankers and stockbrokers.

The West Australian swabbed in and around the male toilets of seven boutique bars in the central business district between 7pm and 11pm on a Friday last month and sent the swabs to the State Government's Chemistry Centre for testing. Six of the swabs contained traces of cocaine.

"Some people in Perth are using cocaine and they're middle-class users because it's an expensive drug," Mr O'Callaghan said.

"It's always a concern, the use of drugs that can cause addiction, but people are saying that what mostly manifests itself out on the street is not so much cocaine use and abuse but methamphetamine, ecstasy and those sorts of drugs.

"That's what we are seeing on the street presenting itself as violence, when people are being affected by these drugs, not so much cocaine."

Shadow police minister Rob Johnson said it was not for the Commissioner to pick and choose which crimes he felt should be pursued and which ones shouldn't. "While people who are using cocaine at the moment may not pose the same problem as other drug users do, drug users are known to go from one drug to the other very often," he said.

Assaults have jumped 25 per cent since Mr O'Callaghan became commissioner two years ago, a spike which he blamed partially on an increased use of illicit drugs at popular nightspots.

But he said cocaine was not on the list of drugs that would be targeted by police over the next year.

"I don't think there will be any kind of specific operation or push to clamp down on that, I think our first priority is to deal with the problems associated with alcohol and the problems associated with the broader available recreational drugs," he said. "We do need to monitor closely that rise in methamphetamine and speed. That has got to occur."

The street price of cocaine is about $220 a gram, with each "line" of the powder-form drug normally containing between 50mg and 75mg.