How Did We Get Here?

New Zealand's history with illicit drugs is short but lively. Māori were one of the few societies to have no use for intoxicants - so how did we go from zero to having some of the highest rates of illicit drug use in the world?

In the first episode of a new seven-part RNZ podcast series about drugs, Russell Brown looks at the New Zealand drug story through the decades.

"They were just loaded with cannabis, opium, laudanum, morphine and alcohol."

There are many surprising things about New Zealand's history with drugs - and the first is how it all began. Which is... From Zero.

Historians generally agree that pre-contact Māori were one of the few societies with no use for intoxicants. Which isn't to say there were none handy. The New Zealand liverwort is one of the few plants apart from cannabis to contain cannabinoids, but there's no real evidence it was traditionally used. Other plants with psychoactive properties may have been used as rongoā, or traditional medicines - but not to get high.

The colonists, on the other hand, had all the drugs - and often in the same bottle. Patent medicines containing opium, morphine, cannabis and cocaine were widely available into the 20th century. They set New Zealand on the way to the present day, when our use of some illicit drugs is amongst the highest in the world.

Historian Redmer Yska and documentarian David Herkt talk Russell through New Zealand's first celebrity drug scandal, in the 1930s, and the profound loss of innocence that came with the huge Mr Asia drug syndicate in the 1970s. And let's not forget the 1950s, when proper society considered itself drug-free but amphetamines were in many bathroom cabinets and doctors could prescribe cannabis for your migraine.

Future episodes of From Zero will look more closely at cannabis, methamphetamine and other drugs. But for now, sit back and enjoy Aotearoa's hidden history of getting high.

Note: the text in this page has been altered to correct a statement that liverwort was part of traditional rongoā practice. Although this is sometimes claimed, there is no reliable evidence for its use.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details