New Zealand's P-addiction problems evolved from drug users of all ages trying methamphetamine over the past decade as it was novel, to dealing with a hard core of older addicts, a researcher says.
"We've probably passed the highwater mark," said Chris Wilkins, a senior researcher at Massey University's centre for social and health outcomes research and evaluation (Shore).
Dr Wilkins is the lead researcher on the illicit drug monitoring system (IDMS) which monitors trends in NZ drug use.
"Like any product lifecycle, we are just entering a new phase -- which we would call the mature phase of methamphetamine use," he told a briefing on methamphetamine in New Zealand.
The Government is due to announce over the next few weeks measures wanted to take to combat the P problem -- possibly including electronic tracking of customers purchasing cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine.
Dr Wilkins said the nation was now faced with dealing with a lot of frequent, entrenched dependent methamphetamine uses.
"We need to have good avenues to get those people into drug treatment," he said.
Methamphetamine use in New Zealand appeared to peak between 1998 and 2001, when it was novel in the illicit drug scene, he said.
The numbers of P labs detected dropped from 190 in 2007 to 133 in 2008, he said.
But data from interviewing drug users showed regional variations in use, with those in Auckland and Northland the heaviest users and South Islanders the lowest.
Until 2000, New Zealand had mainly had a cannabis market worth $170 million a year, but since then had added a similar size market for P and for ecstasy.
"Since 2000, we've doubled the size of our drug market in NZ." The profile of frequent P users showed 75 percent of them were men, with a median age of 27 -- because a lot of older users did not start using until later in life -- and more than half of them were unemployed, or on a sickness benefit.
They average use of P two or three times a week, with daily use for a fifth of the consumers.
P users who were already criminals tended to escalate property crime and drug dealing to pay for their habit -- and about 70 percent had been arrested and over half convicted of a crime, with 30 percent former prisoners.
Dr Wilkins said the relationship between drug use and the criminal justice system provided opportunities for intervention.
"There are opportunities to short-circuit that relationship ... divert those people into treatment, into counselling," he said.
This could be done at a range of points such as arrest, conviction and imprisonment.
"We really need to do better in terms of offering those solutions to offenders with serious drug problems," he said.
About 22 percent of P users had sought help for their drug use but had been unable to get it.
