KEY POINTS:
More New Zealanders are drinking alcohol, popping party pills and smoking tobacco.
But the same Massey University survey that has found increases in these legal drugs has also found the first significant drop in illegal cannabis use for many years and a slight reduction in use of methamphetamine,
or "P".
The survey confirms other evidence that P use appears to have peaked in 2001, when 5 per cent of 15- to 45-year-olds said they had used it in the previous year.
The rate dropped to 4 per cent in 2003 and 3.4 per cent in the latest survey.
But these reductions have been offset by small increases in cocaine and Ecstasy, which has overtaken amphetamines to become New Zealand's fifth most popular drug after the three legal drugs and cannabis.
Researcher Chris Wilkins said the survey, of 1902 people aged 15 to 45 who were telephoned last year, said even the decreases in cannabis and methamphetamine provided little comfort because New Zealand still had very high rates for both drugs.
This year's United Nations World Drug Report, using 2001 figures for New Zealand, found that this country was second-highest among developed nations for both cannabis (after Canada) and amphetamines (after Australia).
New Zealand was third-highest for Ecstasy use after Australia and the Czech Republic, but was around the average for developed countries for cocaine and opiates such as opium and heroin.
As in all previous surveys, alcohol was by far the most popular drug, used by 85.1 per cent of those aged 15 to 45 in the year up to the survey - up from 82.2 per cent in 2003.
Alcohol Healthwatch director Rebecca Williams said the increase was consistent with alcohol sales figures. Sales dropped from 11.3 litres of pure alcohol per person in 1986 to a low of 8.7 litres in 1998, partly due to the campaign against drink-driving, but have risen again to 9.4 litres a head last year.
She said the biggest increase was in ready-to-drink "alcopops", which were favoured especially by young women.
"It's the result of an ongoing liberalised environment," she said.
"In the last 15 years the number of outlets has more than doubled, so when you look at our 12- to 17-year-olds they have been born into this environment. We are growing a whole generation of heavy drinkers."
Young people were also the main users of BZP party pills, used in the past year by one in every six people (16.1 per cent) aged 15 to 45.
Dr Wilkins said the pills did not show up at all in the previous survey in 2003.
"BZP has come from nowhere. It's now the fourth most widely used drug in New Zealand," he said.
"The problem with BZP is that it has had absolutely no regulation. The New Zealand situation is totally extraordinary. If you tried to sell a new drug or a new food you would have to go through trials with rats, and then trials with monkeys, and finally after years of testing you could sell it to the human population.
"But there have been no studies about the long-term effect of BZP, so if you find it's been causing some illness long-term, you've just let 20 per cent of the population be lab rats for this without providing any evidence."
He said the slight drop in cannabis use might be partly a result of the wider range of drugs now available and partly a cultural shift among younger people to stimulants such as party pills to stay awake for work, study or partying.
Other factors included a spinoff from the social disapproval of tobacco smoking and the increase in the Asian population, which has low cannabis use.
He warned that the drop in the numbers using methamphetamine was a common pattern for a new drug and might not actually reduce the harm the drug causes.
"The people who are scared off by the health risks and greater legal penalties tend to be occasional users.
"That leaves a residual, more entrenched population that often turn out to create more social cost than when you had more occasional users."
