WARNING SKY-HIGH DRUG USE MAY SOAR

Police And Drug Workers Warn That New Zealand's Already World-Beating Use
Of Ecstasy And Amphetamines Could Grow Now Gangs Are Using Slick Marketing
To Sell The Drugs.

A United Nations survey, released yesterday, found New Zealand and
Australia were second only to Thailand for methamphetamine use in 2001,
with 3.4 per cent of the population of both countries using the drug.

New Zealand was fifth in the world for levels of Ecstasy use, with 2.3 per
cent of Kiwis using the drug.

The level of drug use is estimated to be even higher now as the number of
drug seizures, arrests, and illicit laboratories found by police have all
increased this year. Crime statistics released in March showed a 28.4 per
cent increase in drug crimes involving amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS),
largely due to a rise in local production and distribution.

So far this year, New Zealand police have busted 94 methamphetamine labs -
compared with 147 labs last year. Christchurch police expect to double the
11 lab busts made in Canterbury last year.

Police and drug workers report that methamphetamine, commonly called speed,
is now readily available in tinnie houses - suburban houses that have
traditionally sold cannabis.

Community and Alcohol Drug Service consultant psychiatrist Roger Morgan
said gangs were using slick two-for-one marketing on methamphetamine,
offering users a point of the drug, or deal-bag, free if they introduced
another user to the gang's tinnie house.

Massey University researcher Chris Wilkins said some of the biggest
increases in methamphetamine use had been among 15- to 17-year-olds - who
typically bought cannabis from tinnie houses. He suspected teenagers were
becoming more exposed to the drug through the tinnie house network.

This month, police shut down several of the houses in Christchurch after
observing up to 30 people a day entering them to buy cannabis at $20 a foil
or methamphetamine "point bags" at around $120 a bag.

The Police Association is now calling for a Commission of Inquiry into
methamphetamine use, particularly the growth of organised crime fuelling
the drug boom, and the threat it poses to New Zealand.

Association president Greg O'Connor said the drug was not only damaging the
mental health of users but also "empowering, entrenching, and enriching gangs".

Methamphetamine has been linked to serious crime and, along with Ecstasy,
is regarded as a health hazard, causing psychosis.

Dr Morgan said referrals for methamphetamine use in Auckland jumped from
5.8 per cent in 1999 to 17 per cent last year, and currently made up 23 per
cent of all referrals. While there were no comparable figures in
Christchurch, it was clear methamphetamine use in the city was growing
"alarmingly", he said.

The Christchurch service saw three or four new methamphetamine users each
week, while Christchurch Hospital staff reported a rise in the number of
people with methamphetamine-related problems turning up in the emergency
department.

The UN's Ecstasy and Amphetamines Global Survey 2003 reported "high and
rising" levels of amphetamine and Ecstasy in New Zealand - and increasing
demand for the pure form, known as "Pure" or "P".

The use of Ecstasy had risen from 1 per cent in 1998 to 2.3 per cent in 2001.

Demand for the drugs was being met by strongly increasing domestic
production all across the country and increased trafficking of
methamphetamine from South-east Asia, the report said.

The Customs service made 28 big seizures of controlled drugs in the year to
June 30, snaring more than 265,000 tablets of Ecstasy, 941g of crystal
methamphetamine, and 964g of amphetamine.

Between June, 2000, and June, 2003, the number of Ecstasy pills seized by
Customs leapt from 7969 to 265,447 tablets.

According to the UN report, the number of clandestine laboratory seizures
in New Zealand rose from one in 1998 to 39 in 2001 - 95 per cent of which
made methamphetamine, and the rest Ecstasy.

Dr Wilkins warned that the New Zealand figures in the UN report were not
referenced and could be distorted. His survey found 3.7 per cent of Kiwis
used methamphetamine in 2001.

Although that level of ATS use was much lower than the use of cannabis -
about 20 per cent of New Zealanders reported using cannabis in the last
year - methamphetamine was a much more harmful drug than cannabis, with an
"exponentially higher" risk of mental health problems and addiction, he said.