'Kiddie packs' luring young into drugs

Drug dealers are luring younger people into the methamphetamine drug market with "kiddie packs".

Police say the smaller deals - known as dots - are being sold to make the drug more attractive to younger buyers.

More young people are now carrying out burglaries to get money to feed their addiction as a result, they say.

News of the trend comes the day after the family of 18-year-old Hamilton man Dean Norris spoke out about his $5000 a week P habit. Dean Norris is missing, presumed drowned, in the Waikato River after running from the scene of a burglary.

His father says he was high on P and had told him he had turned to crime to pay gangs for his drugs.

Hamilton Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Whitehead said Dean Norris' situation was not the worst he'd encountered. "That level of dependency needs a constant cashflow, which of course eventually has to be funded through the proceeds of crime," he said.

Mr Whitehead said a stolen item like a TV was only worth 10 per cent of its true value on the black market.

"So a $1000 TV is only worth $100 -- that's an awful lot of TVs that need to be stolen to fund a $5000 habit."

The price of a gram of P - pure methamphetamine - has remained relatively stable at between $800-$1100 while points (point one of a gram) vary from between $80-$120.

"What we're now finding is the product is being broken down further, cut down into what is being known on the street as dots," Mr Whitehead said.

A former P manufacturer spoken to by the Waikato Times said the smaller deals made the drug more attractive to younger buyers.

"It not only brings in more customers but the more you cut down the product the more profit there is. For, say, an outlay of $1400, a return of six figures can be expected.

"There's an awful lot of money to be made."

Methamphetamine is sold as pills, powder or in crystal form.

A year ago the most common form of P encountered by police was in its powdered form, sold in small square plastic "deal bags" More recently a more potent crystal "Ice" has been sold.

- NZPA