Different drugs find favour in NZ cities

Mon, 14 Jul 2008
News: National

Drug users in New Zealand's three main centres have distinctly different tastes, a new survey has found.

Auckland's "drug of choice" is methamphetamine or 'P', Wellington's ecstasy, while Christchurch has a "whatever they can get" mentality.

The findings are reported in Massey University's third annual Illicit Drug Monitoring System report.

Researchers found that Christchurch users stretched to injection of pharmacy and industrial-use drugs like the horse tranquiliser ketamine, behavioural drug Ritalin, and opiates made from prescription morphine sulfate.

Opiates, usually morphine sulfate converted into heroin and injected, were the second most commonly used drug in Christchurch after cannabis. They ranked seventh in Auckland and fifth in Wellington.

As a result, Christchurch had a large efficient black market for the drugs, the report said.

Cannabis was still the king of the country's drugs, with the highest use and availability of any illegal substance.

Lead researcher Chris Wilkins said overall levels of methamphetamine use appeared to be fairly stable, but there was a growing number of heavy users experiencing health and legal problems.

Frequent methamphetamine users were more likely to have committed violent or property crime last year compared to the 2005 findings, he said.

Police National Drug Intelligence Bureau co-ordinator Detective Inspector Stuart Mills said the intensification of P use was worrying as it led to more crime.

The report, an annual snapshot of the nation's drug use, was produced by interviewing 642 drug users from the three main centres.

NZPA