As a journalist, I’ve always been interested in covering stories on drugs, from the black-market supply of substances that our politicians outlaw to the law enforcement that targets people who use drugs regardless. In 2016, I began investigating the meth-testing industry, which had ballooned in New Zealand in response to fears that methamphetamine – “P” – manufacturing labs had contaminated people’s homes. Terrified homeowners were forking out tens of thousands of dollars on meth testing and expensive cleans-ups. Those who carried out the testing issued dire warnings about the sheer scale and health ramifications of contamination, boosting their businesses in the process.
The government, meanwhile, began evicting hundreds of people from their state homes if meth was detected, even though there was often not a shred of proof that those people had ever used the drug, let alone manufactured it. It didn’t take long to realise that people were being evicted for just a few millionths of a gram of P on a wall, and in most cases, there had never been a meth lab in those homes.
And so began several years of reporting on an industry which eventually came crashing down and showed that we had been caught up in a hysterical moral panic. It was this work that sparked the idea for a wider look at this country’s history with the drug P. My book Mad on Meth was born.
Over the past 20-odd years, successive governments have pulled every lever they had to try to keep methamphetamine at bay. To combat the growing crime and addiction associated with P, we have significantly increased the penalties for possessing and trading, we’ve busted several thousand domestic meth labs and we’ve locked up umpteen meth cooks, importers, sellers and users.
We’ve bolstered our intelligence gathering and Customs defences at the border, banned the precursor chemical pseudoephedrine that was being used to manufacture this drug, and prime ministers have vowed to use every tool in their arsenal to go after the gangs, which are so heavily involved in the meth supply chain.
Over this same period, the price of methamphetamine in New Zealand has collapsed, and it seems that every year now we get a record-breaking bust.
Twice this year, we’ve seized illicit shipments of meth that weighed near-on three quarters of a tonne each, and if that’s how much meth is being stopped it’s a safe bet that much more is making it through to the street. Wastewater testing detected record levels of methamphetamine in 2022 and organisations are run off their feet trying to support addicts and their families. The wait times for rehab can be obscene.
Despite successive governments’ best efforts to crack down on the drug, which the media regularly dubs a “demon”, the meth trade has evolved. Now, rather than amateur Kiwi meth cooks making a little P over their kitchen sinks, there’s a turbo-charged global meth market. Trained chemists are employed by warlords and cartels to produce methamphetamine by the tonne, and global drug syndicates work with outlaws throughout the world, including here, to facilitate its transportation and distribution.
As an example, the Australian police believe 70% of the meth now consumed there is manufactured in Myanmar. Massive volumes of the drug are also produced in Mexico and recently even in troubled Afghanistan.
To put the rise of the global meth trade in perspective, 15 years ago, about 18 tonnes was intercepted globally by law enforcement. In recent years, the total annual seizures have been closer to 400 tonnes.
The pep pill
If we back up a bit, methamphetamine wasn’t always viewed as a terrible and destructive drug in Aotearoa. In fact, meth and amphetamines were legal here for decades.
Meth (sold under the brand name Methedrine) and amphetamines was regularly prescribed for weight loss for women and there was a range of inhalers and tablets containing amphetamines to alleviate common cold and flu symptoms. They became adored by students looking to pull all-nighters, by athletes, shearers, musicians and pretty much anyone looking for an artificial boost of energy and alertness.
Together, meth and amphetamine tablets became known as pep pills. In the 1950s, the Waikato Cycling Association complained to its national organisation that it believed the taking of “pep pills” had been rampant at the cycling national champs.
In 1965, the Civil Aviation Department warned pilots against taking these legal pills before flying, worried it might make them dangerously overconfident in the cockpit.
Concerns about abuse gradually led to the sale of amphetamine-containing drugs being restricted, and then banned outright in the mid-70s.
When methamphetamine burst back into public life in the late 1990s, it was no longer being prescribed by doctors or issued in standard pharmaceutical doses.
Official surveys suggest somewhere between 1-2% of us will take “an amphetamine-like substance” every year. The most recent New Zealand Health Survey (2021-22) indicated 54,000 Kiwis had taken speed, or more likely P, in the previous 12 months.
More in-depth studies suggest the vast majority of New Zealanders who try meth will do so infrequently and will never get hooked on the drug. Researchers at the Christchurch Health and Development Study, which follows the lives of 1265 people born in Christchurch in 1977, reported that more than a quarter of their group (28%) had tried methamphetamine at some point between ages 18 and 35 – it was the third-most used drug behind marijuana and MDMA (ecstasy).
Most of the 354 participants who had tried meth did so only once or twice, others a little more frequently but never regularly, and 51 people had gone on to using it multiple times a week. It’s with these hardcore users where the chances of having bad outcomes rise fast.
P works by sending vast quantities of dopamine ‒ a pleasure chemical ‒ into the brain. Frequent users are at a vastly higher risk of addiction and serious harm. Evidence suggests about 15% of meth users will end up in this high-risk category, risking long-term health effects that include a weakened immune system, stroke and heart infections and rotten teeth. The NZ Drug Foundation believes there’s probably 6000-8000 heavy meth users in Aotearoa, who consume most of the meth and experience most of the harm.
The super profits that this illegal drug generates has made dealing in it a highly attractive proposition for some of our most dangerous people. The gangs that control much of the trade regularly carry out beatings and, not infrequently, kidnappings and killings. Those who control the meth trade inflict as much harm as the substance itself.
A different strategy
And while it appears the government is losing its war on P, a different approach by the police, health and community leaders in Northland is paying dividends: Te Ara Oranga has proved highly successful in helping people get off the drug. Under the initiative, when the police come into contact with meth users they frequently refer them to health services rather than prosecute them. It’s proved successful and is being slowly rolled out elsewhere.
At the same time, our major political parties, which have ignored repeated calls to replace criminal convictions for drug possession with fines and health referrals, insist formal decriminalisation is off the table. They wouldn’t want to appear soft on drugs, after all, even if it means helping get people off hard ones.
Benedict Collins is a 1News political journalist. His book, Mad on Meth: How New Zealand Got Hooked on P (HarperCollins, $39.99), is out now.
