New Customs figures show importers are trying to bring a soaring number of meth pipes and cannabis bongs into the country, despite a law banning the sale or importation of drug utensils.
By Peter de Graaf of RNZ
Over the first seven months of this year, Customs seized just under 40,000 pipes and bongs at the border - more than the 37,000 seized during all of last year and a massive 25 times more than 2024.
Earlier this year, RNZ visited vape stores, $2 shops and dairies in two Far North towns, and found roughly two-thirds openly sold glass pipes for smoking the class A drug methamphetamine, also known as meth or P.
Most shops had no age restrictions in place and some displayed the pipes on store counters, next to children's novelty items.
Anecdotal evidence suggests similar availability around the country, despite a law in force since 2014, making it illegal to import or sell meth pipes, hash pipes or cannabis bongs.
Customs northern inspections manager Jared Nicholson said prohibited drug utensils could arrive through any border pathway, including air cargo, mail, sea cargo and passenger luggage.
He said Customs used intelligence and risk assessment to identify goods and people of concern. Frontline officers then carried out targeted inspections and searches based on those assessments.
Critics of the ban on importing drug paraphernalia said it wouldn't solve New Zealand's drug problems, but Nicholson said minimising drug harm required action on several fronts.
"By seizing prohibited drug utensils at the border, Customs helps prevent them from being used to administer drugs or sold for criminal profit," he said. "Customs takes the illegal importation of drug utensils seriously."
If the offending was serious or commercial in scale, the people responsible could be investigated and prosecuted.
In May, Customs intercepted a shipping container at the Port of Auckland containing roughly 1600 three-litre canisters of nitrous oxide, 21,400 meth pipes and 219kg of illicit tobacco sent from China.
As a result, three men, aged 35, 39 and 44, were charged with importing and possessing prohibited goods and defrauding Customs revenue.
In another case, an Auckland couple was sentenced that same month for the large-scale importation of thousands of illegal weapons, bongs and meth pipes.
The 50-year-old man was sentenced to eight months' home detention and their company was fined $45,000.
Nicholson said the number of items seized each year could fluctuate, depending on how many commercial-scale consignments were intercepted.
While Customs has enforced the import ban for several years, an RNZ investigation this year found widespread confusion among police, politicians, councils and retailers about whether it was legal to sell meth pipes.
RNZ enquiries bounced around government departments and ministers, before a briefing paper prepared for Health Minister Simeon Brown finally confirmed selling drug utensils was against the law.
First issued in 2014 and updated in 2020, the Misuse of Drugs (Prohibited Utensils) Notice makes it illegal to import or sell cannabis bongs, hash pipes or meth pipes.
The notice spells out the physical characteristics of each type of pipe, so retailers cannot escape prosecution by claiming the pipes are intended for another purpose - such as decorative ornaments, ingesting herbs or tiny flower vases.
The maximum penalty is three months' jail or a fine of $1000 for an individual, or $5000 for a business.
Possession of a meth pipe is a different matter. That is illegal under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, but police must prove the person caught with the pipe intended to use it for smoking meth.
Customs could not break down how many of the almost 40,000 utensils seized this year were meth pipes and how many were for smoking cannabis. Some utensils could be adapted for use with either drug, making it difficult to arrive at separate figures.
Customs data shows the number of seizure operations is falling, which suggests consignment size is increasing sharply.
The complete figures are as follows: Number of drug utensils seized: 2023 - 5599, 2024 - 1515, 2025 - 37,068, 2026 (January to July) - 39,196. Number of seizures: 2023 - 88, 2024 - 88, 2025 - 61, 2026 (January to July) - 46
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