Salvation Army issues a warning

Copy sourced from newswire.co.nz

“I would do anything to give up meth,” says Emmy through a mouthful of creamed donut.

 “But come back tonight and I’ll also do anything to get it.

 “That’s why I have this,” she gestures at the home detention monitor attached to her ankle. It looks heavy, uncomfortable and out of place around her delicate ankle.

 She’s having another creamed donut, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

 She grins and shrugs.

 Emmy, not her real name, will turn 20 in six weeks. Legally Newswire can’t tell you her real name because she is currently before the court on other charges.

 She says she’s been on a waiting list for a meth treatment programme for five months.

 Emmy is knows stealing is wrong, but she did what she had to feed her habit.

 Yes she still has a habit but she doesn’t want to talk about how she’s handling her addiction now because she’s ashamed, and her Mum might read this.

Emmy is one of those statistics making up the 78% increase of meth related offences that the Salvation Army announced in their State of the Nation report on Wednesday. It is the most concerning illicit drug on the Salvation Army’s radar.

“This is us” The 2018 State of the Nation Salvation Army Report.

 The Sallies have been part of New Zealand for 135 years; they know what’s going on at a grassroots level.

Ten years ago they started releasing an annual report highlighting important social and economic issues that they felt needed to be addressed. This year the rise of methamphetamine use is one of their biggest concerns.

Dire is an apt word to describe their warning about New Zealand’s growing meth problem.

 Conversely, while meth offenses grow, possession/use of cannabis offences are dropping significantly, they halved from 32% to 16% between 2009 and 20017. While a change in police focus may in part be responsible for less cannabis convictions, there is other evidence to support that meth is becoming more readily available and more of a social problem.

 The most recent Arrestees Drug Use Monitoring report shows that in the last six years, respondents admitting to having used meth within the last 30 days has jumped from 14% to 22%. That same report also found that the mean number of days a year respondents were using meth has risen from 68 to 85. That rise in use has seen the price of meth drop 17% in six years, down from $723 per gram to $620 per gram in 2016.

 Meanwhile cannabis prices have risen with access becoming increasingly difficult. That recent Arrestees Drug Use Report found 27 % of respondents thought it was more difficult to get cannabis than it was methamphetamines.

 Six years ago that number was 13%.

 The fact the Salvation Army has singled out meth is no real surprise to those on the coalface of drug education and treatment.