Glenn Dobson: Drug Detection Agency CEO on drug tests revealing the increasing use of opioids in New Zealand

There are concerns overseas opioid abuse trends are taking hold here.  

The Drug Detection Agency's data for the three months to September finds opioids showed up in 18% of positive tests. 

It warns opioid detections are stabilising at this high level, while some regions like Gisborne recorded a sharp increase of 41%. 

CEO Glenn Dobson told Mike Hosking the test results are a good oversight of what’s happening in our society in relation to the supply of drugs.  

He says there's more of those drugs being sold illicitly globally, so it could be picking up here too. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you want to reason as to why we might
not be traveling that, well, how about the Q three
data from the Drug Detection Agency. So we got the
cannabis that's now present in seventy one percent of positive
tests up eight percent. Why wouldn't it be twenty three
percent test are positive for amphetamine type substances. A significant
increase on the old cocaine. Good stuff. Glenn Dobson's the
Drug Detection Agency CEO. Good morning, Yeah, goodbody, Mike. Just

(00:22):
for clarification sake, this is workplace testing, right.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, correct, The most of the testing we do are
in workplaces.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Right. So if I'm just trying to find out what
sort of picture we're painting for New Zealand, if I
round up one hundred random workplaces, are there drugs in
all of them?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah? Look a good question. It's a decent snapshot of
I guess New Zealand workplaces. You know, the positivity rate
in this last quarter is just under four percent. So
in in another way of looking at it, go to workplace.
You've got one hundred workers on average, four of them
are potentially impaired by drugs.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
But if I went to a forestry business as opposed
to an accounting business as opposed to a retail shop.
Surely i'd find vast differences.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah. Possibly. Traditionally drug testing has been what we describe
as safety sensitive industries or blue collar industries, but that's
been changing a lot over the last several years, and
a lot of white collar businesses are drug testing now
looking at brand protection, risk mitigation, that type of thing
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Okay, so the variance in drugs does it tell you
anything that there's a lot of versus a lot of
meth versus a lot of coke? What's that tell us?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
I guess it's a really good oversight of what's happening
out there in society and ration to supply of drugs.
Cannabis is always high ineration to our positivity rates, but
certainly in the latest quart of methamphetamine is down slightly.
Opioids is pretty steady, that's no surprise, and operoids has
been steady for a while, which is a real concern.
And are we staying to follow the trends of global use?

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Do you find I mean lot you work in it,
do you find this depressing? I just find this just
unbelieve believably depressing.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Depressing. No, fascinating. It's dynamic, it's changing. We're affected by
a number of factors, both local and global economies and
supply Chaine and so forth. I look at it as
I want my friends, my families, my colleagues to be safe.
And that's we want to do here, is we want
to eradicate the risk of drugs in the workplace, of

(02:22):
pill can be safe?

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Is it about safety as much as it is about
I don't know morals or behavior or the dichotomy that
faces New Zealand. At the moment. All I see is
a country that's got problems. And then I talk to
a person like you and we're all on drugs, and
I think, well, there's join a couple of dots.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah. Look, I guess the moral ethical question is something
that that political parties and society will grapple with for
years to come. From our perspective, it is purely about safety.
We we were to take a judgment coordination to why
people take drugs. The civil situation is we don't want
the pilot, we don't want the surgeon, we don't want
the person driving the truck good their roads to be
affected by drugs.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Fair enough, Glenn appreciate it Glenn Dobson Drug Detection Agency.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
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