Cocaine use soars, beyond 'small pockets' of NZ society

Author: Luke Kirkness,
Publish Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2023, 7:41AM

The amount of cocaine use in the Bay of Plenty and New Zealand has skyrocketed but methamphetamine and MDMA are on the decline.

Despite the drop in methamphetamine, demand remains strong.

Results from the police’s wastewater drug testing programme showed 41 grams of cocaine was found in the Bay of Plenty district in Quarter 3 last year, a whopping 102 per cent higher than the previous four quarters’ average of 20.25g.

The same jump took place nationally with a 400g increase - or 70 per cent - over the same time frame, with 980g consumed weekly.

The national total resulted in an estimated weekly cost of $290,000 in social harm and $390,000 in distribution.

NZ Drug Foundation executive director Sarah Helm said anecdotally it heard there was more cocaine available in the community and in places it was not usually seen.

That didn’t mean it was an ongoing trend but was something it was “keeping a watchful eye on”, as cocaine was more addictive than some other drugs such as MDMA.

Recent samples appeared to be higher in cocaine content and less full of fillers like creatine and caffeine, Helm said.

“That alone means this cocaine will be stronger than people will be used to.

“Additionally, we have seen more concerning fillers that have a greater risk of harm such as Procaine, Benzocaine and Lidocaine. This is more akin to the supply we see in the USA and Central America than what our previous cocaine results have shown.”

Cocaine users found it wore off quickly so they tended to re-dose and that increased the likelihood of addiction, Helm said.

Wastewater testing was a “bit of a blunt instrument” because it didn’t reveal details about harm or other behaviours and data captured a point in time, not necessarily what was happening day to day, Helm said.

“A change also doesn’t tell us whether there are more or fewer people using a drug, or whether it’s the same number of people using more or less.”

Over the past year, seven sites in Tauranga, Rotorua, Whakatāne and Taupō were routinely sampled for the Drugs in Wastewater Testing programme.

The results were aggregated per capita from these sites and made up the results for consumption in the district.

New Zealand Police manager of intelligence fusion teams Julia Smith said “like any commodity”, supply and demand had a large impact but these differed from drug to drug.

“Cocaine has traditionally been consumed in small pockets of society,” Smith said. “However, now we are seeing an increase in cocaine consumption across New Zealand.

“It is possible this is due to an increase in availability which has prompted a broadening of the cocaine market.”

Smith said MDMA use in the Bay of Plenty and nationwide remained “relatively low” when compared with previous consumption rates and methamphetamine use was showing an overall downward trend too.

“After a period of high methamphetamine consumption rates from August 2021 to July 2022, New Zealand sample sites have generally seen a decrease in methamphetamine consumption.”

Smith said MDMA demand often increased over weekends and during events like music festivals, leading to fluctuations in consumption trends.

“When MDMA supply in New Zealand is low we begin to see MDMA substituted or misrepresented with other novel drugs such as synthetic cathinones.”

Methamphetamine supply and demand were more complex.

Smith said supply referred to supply chains, networks and external factors that enable methamphetamine to be bought into or manufactured in the country.

Availability referred to how much of the drug was in New Zealand and its distribution and dealership across it.

Consumption referred to when, where, why and how methamphetamine was being consumed and therefore the factors impacting demand.

But despite the decrease in consumption, the demand for methamphetamine remained strong.

“When availability is high, people tend to consume more, and we detect higher consumption rates in the wastewater,” Smith said.

“It is possible law enforcement activity, including seizures - on and offshore - and Operation Cobalt has impacted on supply and availability of methamphetamine in New Zealand, which has then contributed to the decrease in consumption over quarters three and four [in] 2022.”

Smith said a decrease in demand was unlikely given the speed at which the decrease occurred.

Wastewater samples were taken as 24-hour composites, for seven consecutive days each month. Samples were then filtered, and drug biomarkers were extracted by solid phase extraction and analysed.

Smith said drug use was calculated by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research using methods supported by international research.

How the wastewater data is used:

To inform methamphetamine reduction/prevention initiatives by both Police and partner agencies.
As an evidence base to support prioritising funding/resource allocation.
As a complementary data set to estimate where illicit drug harm is occurring.
As an evidence base for Police leadership to raise issues and start conversations with partner agencies.
To inform Area and District Tasking and Co-ordination meetings.
To understand illicit drug use trends – both temporal and geographic.
To inform policy and organisational settings.
To provide per kilogram social harm cost estimates for the New Zealand Drug Harm Index.
To confirm intelligence inferences around supply, availability and demand for the drugs tested for.
To contribute to international data collection and understanding of illicit drug trends.