Fact Four: We are about to be hit by a wave of deadly designer drugs that could kill an elephant. Fact Five: Whatever we are doing isn't working.

The price of ice is falling - not because demand has dropped, but because greater amounts are being manufactured locally and internationally. Drug syndicates are importing containerloads of industrial solvent 1,4-Butanediol to sell as counterfeit GHB (while the federal government continues to sit on its collective backside doing nothing), police are raiding record numbers of cannabis hydroponic grow houses and we use more coke than a bourbon drinker in a caravan park.

Drugs seizures of multiple kilos that once dominated headlines are now so routine they go unreported and drugs intercepted in the post are usually destroyed because law enforcement doesn't have the resources to chase the importers.

This is because of the iron law of crime - that where there is a demand there will be a supply - and as we have an endless appetite for products that send us off our trolleys, nothing will change any time soon.

When police crack a major syndicate such as Tony Mokbel's $400 million operation known as The Company, it makes no difference to the overall underworld economy. "We know who 90 per cent of the dealers are, we just don't have the resources to chase them down," says one investigator.

Our enforcement method seems to be based on concentrating on the major syndicates with the aim of disrupting big shipments, arresting key players and seizing black assets. The front end for this tactic are specific taskforces, specialist drug detectives and joint federal-state operations.

Meanwhile at a local level police deal with violent offences, property crimes, social disruption and the mentally ill.

While figures vary, local police estimate around 80 per cent of their crimes are drug-related, which include offences committed to pay for drugs and violence committed by offenders under the influence of illicit substances.

There are some who think the "Big Fish" tactic is doomed to fail and police need to rethink. Here we turn to former US police chief Patrick Harnett, a man indirectly responsible for solving thousands of crimes in Victoria, even though he has never worked here - but more of that later.

In the 1990s, Harnett was put in charge of the New York Police Department Narcotics Division at a time when the city was pockmarked with no-go zone ghettos effectively controlled by local drug gangs.

Police could seize tonnes of drugs at the top end and arrest hundreds of street dealers at the bottom without impacting on the trade.

Harnett oversaw a change of tactics, which meant that instead of looking at drug detection as a national or global war, it was dealt with at a local level - virtually street by street.

"I felt that productivity was wrongly being measured - it was based on arrests and the seizure of product," Harnett says.

He recalls how police seized 1600 kilograms of cocaine, laying it out with cash and drugs for the media, "but it had very little impact and was only one third of the shipment". He refers to it as "chasing the Kilo Fairy", as if big busts can somehow shift the drug dynamic.

Police would launch 90-day blitzes on drug hotspots, only for the dealers and users to return on day 91.

NYPD was based on policing 78 precincts, each with a population of 100,000 and each with its own crime problems. Harnett took the fight to the local crime gangs that controlled the drug distribution on the street level.

He assigned teams of narcotics police to specific trouble spots in what is described as a "turf-based" strategy - challenging his teams to take ownership of the problem. They would not worry about street dealers but target gang leaders, the leaders who provided the drugs for sale and organised many of the local crimes - shootings, burglaries, robberies and assaults.

"The leaders of these little crews were responsible for committing a disproportionate amount of crime. It was not about arresting more people but arresting the right people," he says.

Not that he was short of resources. His Narcotics Division doubled from 1600 to over 3200 in just two years. Our Drug Taskforce is around 35 (in fairness, there are a truckload of taskforces and other groups working on drug dealers at any one time).

The result of the turf approach in New York? Over 900 drug gangs were dismantled, the overall crime rates dropped and areas controlled by criminals were given back to the local community.

"We can win the drug war by shifting the ground on which we fight from entire boroughs or a whole city to individual neighbourhoods and even individual streets. People who had lived as virtual hostages in their own homes felt free of the terror and tyranny of the drug gangs. Where gunshots and shootings were once common, children now played ball and rode bicycles," he wrote.

Police here have successfully (if belatedly) used this tactic here on the Apex Gang. By arresting and jailing the leaders, the gang responsible for a spate of carjackings, home invasions, assaults and low-level drug dealers has effectively been destroyed.

Police here have successfully (if belatedly) used Harnett's approach here on the Apex Gang. Photo: Supplied

Perhaps the Harnett method could be used on the Richmond heroin trade - users arriving in the area to buy would be moved on and the suppliers to the street dealers identified and arrested. Why not try it, not for months but for years?

Harnett spoke to Naked City just a few days before jumping on a Melbourne-bound plane and while he will meet local senior police to discuss turf-based strategies, his main reason for coming here is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of a crime detection innovation he helped establish in Victoria.

Back in 1985, Harnett was rolling out a new concept in New York called Crime Stoppers - a plan to encourage people with information on crimes to phone in with the guarantee of anonymity and the promise of a possible reward.

Geoff Wilkinson in his Victoria Police days. Photo: Facebook

Victoria Police media director Geoff Wilkinson, who was on a Churchill Fellowship at the time, met Harnett and was sold on the project, bringing it back to Melbourne, where it was enthusiastically backed by then chief commissioner Mick Miller.

"I could see it could be a goer in Australia and we were able to take advantage of the research Pat had already done," says Wilkinson.

And so in 1987 Crime Stoppers was born, soon spreading around Australia (There are now more than 1000 Crime Stoppers across the globe, responsible for solving more than 100 crimes a day).

At first many police were sceptical, complaining they would have to run around checking out anonymous tips left by dobbers trying to claim cash rewards.

Victoria Police chief commissioner Mick Miller in 1987, the year the force introduced the Crime Stoppers program. Photo: James Boddington

But it took off. The figures are remarkable and speak for themselves. Police now say Crime Stoppers generates about 44 per cent of all intelligence held by Victoria Police. In 30 years Crime Stoppers is responsible for more than 21,000 arrests, 85,000 charges, 930,000 calls and contacts and more than $226 million in cash, drugs and property seized.

And we are not talking about people kicking over rubbish bins. Crime Stoppers has provided leads in over 100 murder investigations. Just last year a fresh tip on the 2008 murder of James Russouw came through a call to the agency after a schoolfriend recognised the offender from grainy CCTV.

The tip led to Christopher John Lavery, who last month was convicted of the homicide. Without that call to Crime Stoppers, the murder would almost certainly still be unsolved.

Another remarkable fact is that when it comes to callers, the greed factor is virtually non-existent. Of the thousands of calls made in the last financial year, only six claimed a reward. Many ring out of a sense of community duty and are attracted to the guarantee that investigators will not be given their names. The reports are written so even the gender of the informer is concealed.

'I could see it could be a goer in Australia': former Victoria Police media director Geoff Wilkinson, 30 years on. Photo: Eddie Jim

And there is another factor. People frustrated with crime just want to help. Passing on information, even if it does not lead to arrests, is a way of fighting back and not hiding under the doona.

Crime Stoppers is also a valuable triage tool in major crimes with multiple witnesses. In this year's Bourke Street attack that left six people dead and more than 30 injured, many of those in the area later contacted police through the Crime Stoppers phone line.

Yet there remains a mystery. We know the public trust Crime Stoppers, we know it helps solve serious crime and we know police see it as a pivotal investigative tool, and yet it still battles for funds. This is particularly stupid as Crime Stoppers avoids thousands of police hours in legwork that saves more than $20 million in wages.

Despite causing $226 million in assets to be seized, Crime Stoppers battles for bucks, relies on donations and some public funding and a few years ago was three weeks from bankruptcy. It costs around $1 million to run and really should be fully government funded from just a tiny percentage of the black money it helps recover.

And so, Premier Andrews, why not just sign the cheque?