Mike Sabin: Former detective and anti-meth advocate on the need for preventative action

New figures on meth-use are prompting calls for more preventive action.  

Discharges from public hospitals suggest meth-use has increased four-fold over the past decade, while wastewater testing last year showed a doubling in meth use. 

Former detective and anti-meth advocate Mike Sabin told Ryan Bridge that you’ve got to turn the tap off on the supply. 

He says that New Zealand’s had a problem with meth for the last 25 years because policy is focused on harm minimisation or problem limitation, which accepts that use will happen and tries to manage it. 

Sabin says this is the wrong way to go around it, as areas such as tobacco and diabetes which have seen a reduction have been as a result of prevention. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So new data from Health New Zealand release to news
talks there be patients being discharged from hospital with meth
as part of their diagnosis has quadrupled in the last decade.
The amount of the wastewater testing doubled, but since twenty
nineteen as well, which is obviously not great. Mike saban Form,
a detective and drug educator on the show Mike Good Morning,
Uri Row. Where's it all coming from?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
The mess? Yeah, Southeast Asia and now South America.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
And then does it go to the five oh one
gangs and then to Northland.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, we've had a triple tripling in the last twelve
months in actual effect, so a fair bit of it
will be But I think the five ones I've had
certainly had a hand to play. I think that's probably
largely where the American South American connections now come in.
But we're a country that has a large appetite for
a drug that we pay a lot more for than
anyone else. So it's not surprising that you know, the

(00:57):
problem with bad bubbling away for the last twenty twenty
five years is continuing on with a head esteem.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Now, are you confident in those wastewater numbers that they
I mean they're terrible, but are they accurate?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, there are much better indicator than probably what we've
had before. But in a place like Northham, for example,
there's a lot of people obviously that are on septic tank,
so it's not picking them up, so it's not entirely accurate.
But if you look across a number of the other indicators,
that certainly because they're pretty good indication that use usage
is just steadily increasing and now exponentially increasing in recent years.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
So what do you do about it? I mean, we've
been banging our heads against the wall trying to stop
this at the border. Clearly we're not stopping it. I
mean we're doing all we can and we're spending a
lot of money trying to do it, but it's not working.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
What do we do well? I guess the question is
if there's a demand, they'll always be a supply. It's
like any other commodity. It's just that this particular commodity,
you know, people get addicted to the stuff, they can't
not use it, and so you know, for the suppliers,
it's a really really made customers that just keep buying more.

(02:10):
So demand reduction really is the key I mean fundamentally,
you've got to turn the tap off on the supply
because otherwise people are going to keep supplying it, and
we don't really address that, haven't done so for the
twenty five years. We've had the problem largely because our
policy is centered around the notion of harmonimization or problem limitation,

(02:30):
which accepts that use is going to happen and tries
to manage it, which is the wrong way to go
about it. Anywhere that's seen any reductions has really had
a focus on prevention, which we do with tobacco, we
do with you know, diabetes and other health issues. I'm
not sure why drug use we say, well, let's just
try and manage the problem instead of preventing it from

(02:51):
starting an affairs.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Interesting, Mike, appreciate your time this morning. Mike Sabin form
a detective drug educator of course nationally MP as well the.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
More familiar edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news
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