Editorial: Fight against scourge of 'P' almost won

The proportion of Kiwis aged 16 to 64 using P has dropped by more than half to 1 per cent, according to the Health Ministry survey. Photo / Greg Bowker

It is not often that a nation succeeds in defeating a criminal drug. Yet that is what this country has practically achieved in its battle against methamphetamine, known here as "P". The narcotic that reached epidemic proportions in the past two decades, finding addicts among the wealthy and the poor and fuelling some of the most crazed and violent crimes on record, has been reduced to a trickle.

The latest Health Ministry survey has found just 1 per cent of the population aged 16-64 used P last year, half the proportion that were using it three years ago.

Even then, its incidence had declined markedly since the turn of the century when it was being used by 5 per cent of those between 15 and 45. Even 1 per cent is of course too many and police are not claiming a complete victory yet, but they are winning.

They say the decline is particularly sharp in young and new users. It appears P is not seen as a social drug any more, "pretty much the opposite," said a detective senior sergeant this week. "It's an anti-social drug. Society has done a pretty good job of demonstrating how harmful methamphetamine is."

The director of the Drug Foundation, Ross Bell, who says the latest survey result is "enormously significant", credits customs as well as police for the success, along with increased addiction treatment provided under a three year "action plan" announced by the Prime Minister in 2009.

Clearly all agencies can take a bow, as can Mr Key. We should be the first to acknowledge his effort having called for a crackdown on the scourge we had highlighted in a series of articles that year. The series contained harrowing stories of the damage P was doing to individuals, their families and businesses, to neighbourhoods, gang-infested communities and not least to the victims of their crimes.

By then it was 13 years since police had come upon evidence that local gangs were "cooking" the drug like their counterparts in the United States. The discovery of homebake "labs" was running at about 200 a year and ingredients were also being smuggled in from China. P featured in just about every kind of crime from car theft to murder.

Year after year there seemed no end to it but, as we said here one day in May, 2009: "New Zealand is a small, self-contained society surrounded by sea ... If this country puts its mind to it we can stop this blight that is destroying lives, estranging families and presenting a public menace."

It took much more than words of course, and more than tough political talk. Pharmacies stopped selling the main precursor, the cold remedy pseudoephedrine, but Asian imports were a much greater problem. Customs believed they were missing five times as many pills as the few million they were seizing each year.

But ultimately a war on drugs has to be fought in the minds of the addicted. With extra professional help funded over the past three years, plus support from their families and peers, P has lost its hold on all but a hard core of addicts. More important, few are taking it up. It has lost whatever social cachet it once had.

When the three year action plan expires next month, the authorities should produce a comprehensive report on what was done, what worked and how. The P epidemic will not be the last drug to take such a hold of societies such as ours.

The first lesson of the victory over P is that we can do something about it. The second lesson is that it may be easier to tackle demand than supply. Those few still using P tell researchers it is still readily available, and cheaper now. The threat may linger but as the policeman says, "we are winning, fingers crossed".