Year of Covid puts brakes on meth
Extent of drug trade disruption revealed
The year of Covid-19 hammered the methamphetamine trade in New Zealand, police say.
Information released by the National Drug Intelligence Bureau shows the amount of the illegal stimulant seized last year was significantly down to just 23.7 kilograms. In the preceding year, 615.5kg was found.
The numbers cover seizures from both police and Customs.
National Drug Intelligence Bureau manager Detective Inspector Blair Macdonald said following border restrictions it was harder to get meth into the country and tougher to distribute it once here.
‘‘Nobody was able to move across the country,’’ Macdonald told Stuff.
‘‘We really did see a tightening of availability across the country, particularly in the South Island.’’
Waikato saw a significant drop last year, with 4.3kg seized compared with 220.6kg in 2019. However, the massive figure in 2019 was because of a police bust that saw 216kg of methamphetamine seized.
But, not all drug seizures went down. For example, MDMA is on the rise, a trend Macdonald said had been in play since 2018.
Between 2018 and 2019 there was a 600 per cent increase in seizures of MDMA, Macdonald said, and last year 34,326 tablet equivalents of the drug were seized. In 2019, 28,997 were seized.
Organised crime groups were targeting New Zealand because prices here were higher than in other countries, he said.
Each pill costs about $40 but Macdonald said they were increasingly seeing it in powdered form, too. From time to time they came across pill presses in New Zealand but he said it was mostly coming into the country in pill form.
‘‘What we say to people is, the safest drug use is no drug use, but if people are making those decisions, they need to be really careful about what they are consuming.
‘‘All illicit substances are not regulated, you can’t assume because you purchased MDMA you have that.’’
He said through working with Know Your Stuff, a drug checking service, they were aware of all sorts of things being sold as MDMA.
Meanwhile, two substances that had held on strong despite Covid-19 lockdown were LSD/ NBOME and GHB/GBL.
LSD/NBOME tabs saw an increase in seizures last year and Macdonald said while NBOME had come and gone out of fashion, this year it was being noticed again.
‘‘Both of these have held strong when you compare to the other substances, which have made a decline because of Covid.’’
He thought this was partly because LSD was such a niche drug and a lot of the users were tech-savvy so could get it on the dark web.
The amount of LSD/NBOME seized in the country had doubled, with 8540 tabs seized last year compared with 4170 in 2019.
The rise in GHB/GBL was less pronounced with 21,148ml seized last year compared with 23,165ml in 2019.
Cannabis head/leaf had also seen an increase in seizures, with 673,934g seized last year compared with 510,729 in 2019.
Only 501g of cocaine was seized last year, down from 24.8kg in 2019.
‘‘ . . . the safest drug use is no drug use, but if people are making those decisions, they need to be really careful about what they are consuming.’’ Detective Inspector Blair Macdonald
National Drug Intelligence Bureau manager