Detective Inspector Bruce Good stands next to New Zealand's largest drug haul, $95 million worth of methamphetamine, plus arms and ammunition found in a house raid. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Detective Inspector Bruce Good stands next to New Zealand's largest drug haul, $95 million worth of methamphetamine, plus arms and ammunition found in a house raid. Photo / Paul Estcourt

How has P affected you? Tell us your story at newsdesk@nzherald.co.nz

From today the Herald begins a six-part series on the damage methamphetamine is doing to New Zealand. We examine how the drug gets in, its devastating effect on society and what we can do to fix the problem.

New Zealanders are the number one P users per head in the developed world, ahead of Australia and the United States. The trade is now a massive illegal business worth up to an estimated $1.5 billion a year — about the same size as the wine industry.

Last year police and customs seized more than 3 million pills used to make the drug but they estimate organised crime groups could be smuggling in at least 10 million, enough to make more than 600 kilograms of methamphetamine.

The drug sells for up to $1000 a gram and its purity level of about 80% makes it highly addictive. One man spent $600,000 in two years to feed his habit, losing his job as a lawyer and his house.

Research shows regular users under the age of 25 lose control under the drug — 31% had a car crash, 60% had unprotected sex and 57% passed out.

And criminals who use P heavily commit more crime — those who spend more than $1000 a month on the drug admit to stealing property worth $2735 on average and making $3145 from dealing drugs in the same month.

Until a recent law change almost 50% of High Court cases arose from P.

P: THE DRUG THAT CHANGED THE FACE OF CRIME

It was the biggest drugs bust in New Zealand's history. Hidden at the bottom of 1000 cans of green paint, police and customs officers found plastic blocks containing 96kg of "P" or pure methamphetamine.

A second shipment from China contained pseudoephedrine, the chemical used to make P, in bags of cement plaster. Together they were worth a record $135 million.

The two Chinese men who ran the smuggling ring became the first P dealers to be given life imprisonment - and in her sentencing Justice Patricia Courtney spelt out why.

"A veritable flood of methamphetamine makes its way across our borders each year," she told Wei Feng Pan and Ming Chin Chen.

"Users quickly become addicted and the drug has a devastating effect on the personality and function of almost all who use it. It leads to the destruction of relationships, serious domestic violence, street violence and gang violence."