A senior United Nations drug official has called for Australian police to take a larger role in Asia to stem rising trafficking of ice and methamphetamine-type stimulants targeting Australia and New Zealand.
Jeremy Douglas, Asia head of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said Australia needed to build on agreements with China and Thailand that focused on drug syndicates.
Douglas said the big concern was the "big jump" in synthetic drug production, primarily methamphetamines including ice - crystalline form of the drug.
"It's really flooding the region at the moment. It's high priority, highly addictive 'crystal meth'.
"This is the big concern not just in Australian law enforcement but (also) in New Zealand and North America, are all paying close attention to these developments," Douglas told AAP.
For 2015 UNODC reported that seizures of crystal methamphetamine across Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam rose to almost 27,000 kilograms.
Seizures of methamphetamine pills totalled 286 million pills, while seizures of drugs produced in the Golden Triangle region of eastern Myanmar, was more than 10,000kg.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) have recently signed joint task force agreements combating drug trafficking with Chinese drug law enforcement authorities as well as Thailand's Justice Ministry and Thai Narcotics Control Board (ONCB).
Rachanikorn Sarasiri, a former ONCB deputy director and international advisor, said Australia needed to step up its policing involvement in South East Asia.
"Australia should come and associate more with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) as a bloc," Rachanikorn told AAP.
UNODC's Douglas agreed: "The agreement that Thailand and Australia ventured into is really great. We encourage that kind of agreement. But it really needs to involve many, many countries at one time," he said.
Australia and New Zealand are seen as prime targets by drug trafficking syndicates due to high incomes and prevalence rates.
Douglas said the UN could assist by helping overcome political barriers that can affect cooperation.
"The reason being that's exactly how the traffickers operate. They don't respect borders, they don't respect the sovereignty of states.
"They operate across three, four, five states, at any one time to make money. So you have to be able to match that - and in fact exceed that if you can," he said.
