Chris Wilkins: Massey University Drug researcher on why New Zealand meth use is rising

New Zealand's meth use has reached unprecedented heights. 

New figures show a monthly peak of 39.2 kg recorded in October - well above historic averages and nearly double the previous record of 20.6kg in 2021. 

Massey University Drug researcher Chris Wilkins talks to Mike Hosking about the reason for the surge, and what this means for the country.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Turns out we love meth. These new figures show a
monthly peak of thirty nine point two kilos recorded in October,
which apparently as well above historic averages. Massive University drug
Research Chris Wilkins is, well, this Chris, very good morning
to you.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
What does thirty nine kilos mean that? I mean, who's
is that?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Like?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Thousands? Tens of thousands of people or hundreds of thousands
of people? What's a mean?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, it's tens of thousands of people. So a usable
dose is usually zero point one grand, so thirty nine
kilos is a lot, but I think if we just
zoom out of it. So the figures for the last
quarter was one hundred and eight percent higher than the
previous four quarters, and the one before that was thirty
one percent more than the last four quarters. So we're

(00:45):
on a trajectory of massively increasing consumption and that's combined
with declining prices significantly, So thirty six percent decline in
the price of a gram of myth over the last
five years. So we're really up against some really horrible
numbers here.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Do we know how this works? Are we on myth
because we've dropped something else or we're on the something else,
plus we're topping it up with a bit of myth.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I would say this is a supply side effect. So
essentially there's been a massive increase in industrial sized production
of methm FED I mean traditionally from Southeast Asia, but
now increasingly from other parts of the world like South
America and Mexico. And essentially what we're getting is so
you know, the seizures have increased ten times in the

(01:33):
last three or five years. So this is really supply,
very cheap myth that can be easily manufactured at low price,
and we're just getting swamped and myth.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Essentially, I assume given you do wastewater testing, you can
pinpoint the geography. Is that fair or is it everywhere
up and down the country?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I gather it's everywhere up the country. I mean there
is regions where myth is particularly high, and one of
these I think one of the really interesting things that
came out of the wastewater testing is that we could
see that the places we wouldn't expect a lot of myths,
like rural areas and small towns, are actually some often
some of the highest per capita in myth. And that's

(02:15):
really a wake up call in terms of, you know,
targeting local supply where you've got a blatant level of
supply semi public and everyone knows what's going on, but
there's just been no action.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I find this really depressing, do you.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah. I think this is a real wake up call
because and it's partly a technological driven thing that we've
now got synthetic drugs like meth that can be produced
on large scale at very low price. But also there's
other changes in the market, like a digital market. You know,
encrypted messaging apps, dark nets and social media have been
used now in a drug market that's very different from

(02:53):
what we might remember. What I remember is, you know,
as the teenager, so you know these are all things
to keep it where.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
She's all right, Chris, appreciate it. I don't remember the
drug market. Cool.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
No, whether you know what they say, if you can
remember it, you weren't part of it.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
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