Drug safety experts want New Zealanders to engage in a “mature conversation” about drug laws, as new numbers reveal the amount of meth seized at the border spiked this year.
Exclusive numbers obtained by 1News show that Police have seized 428kgs of powder/crystal and 1.3 litres of liquid meth across 331 incidents to March 31.
Those results dwarf both the results from the last two years combined. In 2021 41kgs were seized. In 2022, 17kgs.
It's a sign that global meth production is up, with New Zealand’s high prices making for an attractive market, the NZ Drug Foundation’s Sarah Helm told Breakfast.
She said it was a relief that these massive seizures were happening.
“Police are telling us that prediction is up globally, and so we can be relieved about these shipments being seized,” she said.
“In an unregulated market, we have very little control over what is coming across our border, so it is concerning.”
“The prices that the international market can attract here are higher than other places, so that does make New Zealand a very attractive market.”
While there has been a spike in production and seizures, Helm said that, luckily, Aotearoa hadn’t seen an increase in meth usage.
“That big wave would’ve hit our most vulnerable.”
However, she’s concerned that if the country doesn’t start talking about changes to its drug laws, the increased production will start to have an effect.
She said that while the seizures are helping to keep dangerous drugs off the street, there's much more that could be done.
Helm told Breakfast that our current war on drugs policies need to be rethought.
“In 1975, when we, globally under the leadership of Richard Nixon, decided to ban drugs, we handed them over to organised crime. Over those 50 years or so, we’ve been growing a Frankenstein of which we have very little control.”
“As we get tougher on it, they get better,” Helm said, highlighting how smuggling, sales and production continue to improve as the law gets tougher.
“We need to be prepared to have a mature conversation about drugs and really look at all the solutions in the toolbox.
She talked about other countries that have had successful drug reform, suggesting NZ take an approach similar to Switzerland - which gave heroin addicts heroin to regulate the drug and destabilise the illicit market.
“It sounds crazy to our war on drugs ears.
“That took [heroin users] away from the illicit market. It completely disrupted the sales model, which was relying on people with addiction to sell it on to other people.
“As a result, it’s been hugely successful.”
So why hasn’t New Zealand engaged in these types of conversations? Helm believes the politicised nature of drug laws has made it difficult.
“None of us want to endorse drug use, and I think there’s a fear that if we look at a different approach, we’re endorsing it, and that is not the case.”
She said that “big international players” are behind the increased production - which means it's “almost out of our reach”, warning that action needs to be taken before it hits New Zealand.
“This wave of increased production is gonna hit us eventually, and it’s not going to be good.”
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