By SCOTT MacLEOD
The first time this self-made businessman sat down with friends and heated a pipe of P, it was as though a lightbulb switched on in his head.
The 30-year-old Aucklander felt charged, empowered. He wanted more.
Within one week he was hooked on a drug that would destroy his
family, business and lifelong friendships.
Within a year he had sold the assets of his marine firm that had earned $240,000 in nine months, sacked his 12 staff and spent everything he had on P and partying.
The businessman, whom the Herald will call John, is now a sickness beneficiary. He cannot be identified because of a gangster "who wants to do some donkey-work on me", and because he was never charged for P-related crimes.
But yesterday he was one of six P users who told the Herald their stories as a warning to those who would follow.
Police say P has taken a firm grip on New Zealand and figures made public this week show the country is one of the three worst in the world for abuse of the drug.
John said those first few weeks in 2000 were a blur of smoking and partying as he hit Auckland's central city bars and raged into the night.
He would go three or four days without sleeping or eating, thinking only of where he could obtain his next score of "product".
He would buy three grams a week at $700 a pop and share it with friends. Sometimes he would smoke every hour. "I felt bullet-proof."
John smoked with a hard-core of friends - two men and a woman he had known "since I was knee-high".
Six months into his binge, John noticed that some of his friends were "getting loopy, paranoid".
One needed the help of a psychiatric ward after seeing police officers up trees and believing the paper boy was an undercover cop.
"I always assumed that would never happen to me. But it did."
He lived in a $700-a-week apartment that was visited by P cooks, who would brew up in his room. Later, he moved into the executive suites of Auckland's smartest hotels.
When the money ran out, he turned to theft and fraud.
He borrowed a former girlfriend's car and swapped it for two grams of P. A contact in a mail centre stole credit cards and sold them to John for $1000 each. He would use each card for a week, then buy a new one.
When he learned a gangster was hunting him over a credit card loss he knew he had ventured too far into the dark side. He fled to Northland, entered a rehabilitation scheme and spent three months drying out.
John returned to Auckland 13 months ago and wants to take a real estate course. He is yet to catch up with his long-time friends.
"They are still using," John said. "And there's always that temptation ... "
Herald Feature: The P epidemic
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By SCOTT MacLEOD
The first time this self-made businessman sat down with friends and heated a pipe of P, it was as though a lightbulb switched on in his head.
The 30-year-old Aucklander felt charged, empowered. He wanted more.
Within one week he was hooked on a drug that would destroy his
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