A drug kingpin has been jailed for at least five years for masterminding a "sophisticated" multi-million dollar drug importation business.

The minister overseeing new restrictions on legal highs has slammed "smarter than the law" rogue traders who have been caught out trying to sell products illegally.

When Brett Heginbotham found himself in a police cell, being told he had just robbed a dairy at gunpoint, he knew his addiction to legal highs had reached its lowest ebb.

Hundreds of protesters rallied around New Zealand today opposing a law that allows testing of party pills on animals.

Thousands of people are visiting a Facebook page that details where police checkpoints and hidden speed cameras are located nationwide.

A year after Auckland Mayor Len Brown promised to crack down on central city alcohol issues, booze-related assaults are "bog standard".

A rented house has been demolished and a layer of topsoil removed from its section because the property was so badly contaminated by a secret P lab.

Police warn they will be proactive in cracking down on newly banned drugs under a law which came into effect at midnight.

An Auckland man has appeared in court in Brisbane today charged with trafficking synthetic cannabis into Australia.

Dairy owners are discounting legal highs as they scramble to clear their stocks ahead of looming new restrictions.

Two champion weightlifting brothers face serious drugs charges - including the alleged supply of a new "designer drug" not cleared for human consumption.

A new generation of legal highs could be hitting shelves as early as this summer, despite a bill that puts the onus of safety on manufacturers.

Police have uncovered a major cannabis cultivating operation in an Auckland industrial area and say the plants could have fetched up to $1 million.

It is that time of year when a bunch of skinny, obsessed men don lycra and cycle madly all over France for 21 days, in an attempt to be the one standing atop the podium in Paris.

Eminem says his addiction to prescription drugs left him with near-organ failure.

One in every eight patients admitted to an acute psychiatric unit had been using the synthetic cannabis K2, an audit published today has found.

Recreational steroid use by New Zealanders has been described as a "huge elephant in the room" by a leading voice in the fight against doping.

Fred was in his mid-20s when a car accident on a busy Auckland road left him with serious injuries that would require months of rehabilitation.

Kris McKenzie loved his puppy, Oden. One day, inexplicably, Kris flew into a rage, grabbed Oden and threw him into a wall.

A student drug dealer who was "given a chance" by a judge is on the run after more than $100,000 was found in his wardrobe.

Legal highs must be banned sooner rather than later, says a Coroner who ruled on the deaths of two young men who both died shortly after taking K2 and party pills.

An increase in the number of patients showing up at emergency departments paranoid and agitated on synthetic cannabis is delaying the treatment of more worthy cases, says an emergency doctor.

Dion Chammey first tried synthetic cannabis a couple of years ago for recreation, but after a traumatic event it became an ingrained part of his lifestyle and almost impossible to kick, he says.

Synthetic drug users are holding up worthy emergency cases in hospital emergency departments across the country, a senior doctor says.