Mad on Meth: How New Zealand got hooked on P

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The eye-opening evolution of crystal meth in New Zealand and what can be done about it

Only fifty years ago in New Zealand, methamphetamine was a publicly prescribed drug used as widely as by housewives, sheep shearers, concert pianists and pilots. Legal for decades, meth was about to undergo a local re-brand as the most dangerous and destructive drug in the world.

Journalist Benedict Collins takes us inside the evolution of methamphetamine in New Zealand and around the world. From ram raids for pseudoephedrine in the early 2000s, to the cooks and gangs straight out of Breaking Bad, a visit to Golden Triangle of meth production in Southeast Asia, a moral panic that seeded a meth-testing scandal, unthinkable crimes and drug-fuelled mania, multimillion-dollar meth busts, and the white-collar users who manage their addictions on the sly - all of which cemented New Zealand's reputation as among the highest meth consumers in the world.

Decades on from the criminalisation of meth and despite police and policy crack-downs, wastewater would suggest we are using more than ever. Mad on Meth asks: How did tough on crime become dumb on drugs What does a solution to pure addiction look like

Author Bio

Benedict Collins is a political journalist working for 1News in the press gallery in Wellington. From day dot as a reporter, he's had a strong interest in covering anything to do with illicit drugs and enforcement. He's covered punitive drug-testing sanctions applied to beneficiaries, attempts to legalise pill-testing at festivals, the 2020 cannabis referendum, and in 2018 helped expose a meth-testing scandal which revealed government, landlords and homeowners wasting hundreds of millions of dollars.