Editorial: Meth crisis needs a collaborative approach

It will be a slow road to break the grip meth has on Kiwis. Photo / NZME

THREE KEY FACTS:

• Social media and messaging apps are increasingly used for drug purchases, particularly for cannabis and MDMA.
• Gangs are responsible for one-in-three methamphetamine sales, with higher control in the South Island, Northland and East Coast.
• Wastewater testing has shown methamphetamine use tripled in Northland last year.

If you Google “meth capital of NZ” Northland always appears high in the results.

Many of the answers are centred on wastewater testing results from the nation’s sewerage plants.

A report earlier this year showed methamphetamine use had increased across Aotearoa and tripled in the North.

And while the region has shared that unenviable title with other police districts on and off over the past few years, it has resolutely remained near the top.

A youth seen smoking meth in Kaikohe’s main street prompted Te Rūnanga ā Iwi o Ngāpuhi to ask the Government for urgent action.

Residents of the town have described it as an epidemic.

Ngāpuhi rūnanga chairman Mane Tahere subsequently called for a police crackdown on people in its community and a recent editorial in the Herald on Sunday agreed this could be worth trying.

It is a crisis, and it is here, not only in Northland but throughout New Zealand: communities gripped by a “tsunami of need” are already desperate and throwing people in jail is not going to solve what is a complex and growing emergency.

The Drugs in Wastewater 2024 Annual Overview showed the minimal annual consumption jumping from 732kg to 1434, identifying a social harm cost of $1.5 billion last year.

It is an emergency that has long tentacles – tentacles that reach beyond the pipe to take a stranglehold on wider whānau, resulting in violence, kids going without food and appalling living conditions.

NZME reported last week gangs are responsible for one-in-three methamphetamine sales, with higher control in the South Island, Northland, and East Coast.

The Government has taken steps to crack down on gangs, like banning patches, and the Prime Minister has asked his Justice and Police Ministers to look at what more can be done to tackle the meth issue.

Last week in a pre-Budget announcement they promised to put $35 million over four years into keeping drugs and organised crime out of the country.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has said the Government had no real plan for tackling methamphetamine, and that seizing gang patches isn’t enough.

This back and forth will probably continue well into election year, forgetting one thing, the people who are fighting this on the frontlines every day in our communities.

Groups such as Kaikohe’s Whakaoranga Whānau Recovery Hub are doing the best they can with limited resources.

As hub co-founder Rhonda Zielinski told RNZ, simply hiring more police or sending users to prison would not solve the problem.

“We need to treat the trauma that normally is the reason for the addiction, and then the addiction is normally the reason for the criminality. So, instead of paying for more police to be here, you’re better to actually put more money and more capacity into bespoke local community services that are actually working. Because what we do works. We actually change people,” she said.

We agree. Curtailing gang behaviour is important but what is equally if not more so is having people-based solutions.

It will be a long and arduous process to break the grip meth has on Kiwis so a multifaceted approach will be crucial.

It is time for all political parties to come up with solutions to support those who are making a difference for people every day. They should not be left to fight alone.