Police and customs have seized over 1.5m MDMA tablet equivalents in the first half of this year, and nearly $370m worth of powdered methamphetamine.
The isolation, demand, and tight control of the market by gangs all combine to drive up the cost, making New Zealand a prime target for international drug traffickers looking to make big money.
Detective Superintendent Greg Williams explains, “Transnational crime groups see New Zealand as a golden nugget,” where drug prices remain high and profits are enormous.
New Zealand is a long way from the places where these drugs are made, like Myanmar, where according to Williams, “A kilo of meth in Myanmar costs about $1000.”
But by the time it’s smuggled into New Zealand, the price skyrockets because of the risks and effort involved in getting it here.
Gangs also keep prices high—Williams explains, “Our gangs… operate like a cartel, where they’ve kept the prices virtually unchanged for the last 15 years.”
In the US, meth can be as cheap as $5 for a small amount. In New Zealand, though, that same amount might cost $80 to $100. This has incentivised international syndicates to focus on smuggling drugs into the country through various means.
More than 1.5 million tablet equivalents of MDMA were seized in the first half of the year, compared with almost two million throughout 2023.
Drug Foundation executive director Sarah Helm said the drug trade was responding to the challenge of police and customs' seizures.
"The international market expects a degree of loss, and so they've become increasingly good at producing huge volumes with that in mind," she said.
"What we see instead is that those substances end up being replaced, often with the same substance but not always, and so, for the person who might be using the substances, the risk potentially increases with the seizures."
She said more of a focus needed to be on effective prevention measures.
"A really good strategy would involve not just supply, control, and a bit of policing, it would also involve demand reduction and harm reduction.
"The demand reduction and harm reduction doesn't get as much attention or resource put it," said Helm.
"We're not putting enough resource into known effective measures."
Helm said methamphetamine was being consumed in New Zealand at the same rate in the population as it had been for about a decade - just over one percent - and cocaine was more available in the community than it had been previously.
She said new illicit substances were always appearing and users would take them not knowing the effect - whether it was a bad hangover the next day, or if it were lethal.
Centrist Ltd. 2024
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By elocal magazine