Speaker 1: Cielda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. In
Speaker 1: recent years, drug busts at New Zealand's border keep getting bigger,
Speaker 1: with record breaking holes getting stopped by officials. But drugs
Speaker 1: are still getting into the country and we all know
Speaker 1: that what people think they're buying on the street will
Speaker 1: not necessarily be what they get, and some people may
Speaker 1: be consuming synthetic opioids without ever realizing they're putting their
Speaker 1: health at risk. Today on the Front Page, Drug Foundation
Speaker 1: Executive Director Sarah helm joins us to discuss the new
Speaker 1: drug that has got her organization worried. Sarah, we see
Speaker 1: stories on the Herald website almost every week about a
Speaker 1: drug bust in New Zealand. How many kilogram of drugs
Speaker 1: do you believe actually entering and making it into the country.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not sure if I know the volume of
Speaker 2: drugs making it into the country off the top of
Speaker 2: my head. But drug busts only do one part of
Speaker 2: the job. And in fact, some would argue the way
Speaker 2: that we're handling drugs, or we police them rather than
Speaker 2: regulating them, contributes to a growing concern around potency and
Speaker 2: unpredictability of our drug supply, resulting an increasing threat to
Speaker 2: life because of our drug supply, and.
Speaker 1: In terms of the supply, I guess it's quite difficult
Speaker 1: to get it into the country. Hey, so is a
Speaker 1: lot being made and developed actually here in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: But no, it's spy and large important and comes from
Speaker 2: a variety of places. Our drug supply over the years
Speaker 2: has become more unpredictable, so there's many more novel substances
Speaker 2: being created and increasingly potent. And there are different theories
Speaker 2: around this, but basically, the idea that incentivizes the drug
Speaker 2: supply chain to get the drug as small as possible,
Speaker 2: suppotency lends itself to something being very small and therefore
Speaker 2: much more easily able to be smuggled into the country.
Speaker 3: And the new novel substances are.
Speaker 2: Being created to try and get around drug law, so
Speaker 2: they create a new drug that mimics the effects of
Speaker 2: it an existing substance, and unfortunately, every time one of
Speaker 2: those is created, we don't know what the impact on
Speaker 2: the human body will be. And that's where we see
Speaker 2: some really concerning impacts for people and their health in
Speaker 2: their lives.
Speaker 1: What would you say is the most common drug on
Speaker 1: the streets in New Zealand at the moment?
Speaker 2: Well, alcohol ha, but still by far and away the
Speaker 2: more common drugs that people use are alcohol not to
Speaker 2: be too gg because it is a drug and some
Speaker 2: of its effects are more harmful than many of our
Speaker 2: illicit substances, and cannabis is the drug that most New
Speaker 2: Zealanders have tried as well in the illicit side.
Speaker 3: And then other drugs are much less likely to be
Speaker 3: being used.
Speaker 2: It's a small population that use other substances, and we
Speaker 2: do continue to have methmphetamine and MDMA being quite common
Speaker 2: in the much less common side of things.
Speaker 1: There were fears last year that fentanyl was starting to
Speaker 1: get into New Zealand, but we haven't heard much since then.
Speaker 1: Why do you think fentanyl hasn't really found a footing
Speaker 1: here and we haven't had an epidemics, say, like the US?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the US and North America more broadly so, Canada
Speaker 2: has ended up with quite a significant issue with superpotent opioids,
Speaker 2: specially fentanyl, and they had a particular set of situations
Speaker 2: that arise in North America that I think helped to
Speaker 2: create that situation, one of which was a pre existing
Speaker 2: addiction to prescription opioids and then some changes around the
Speaker 2: availability of those prescription opioids. The arrival of fentanyl really
Speaker 2: spoke to a need in the community, but unfortunately has
Speaker 2: had very dire consequences on the community, and we haven't
Speaker 2: had the same prescription drug issues, and we haven't had
Speaker 2: it arrived here. We are the bottom of the earth,
Speaker 2: so it takes a long time for things to arrive.
Speaker 2: But actually fentanyl hasn't really had a big presence anywhere
Speaker 2: in the world aside from North America. However, we are
Speaker 2: internationally saying the rise of a newer potent opioid, a
Speaker 2: group of potent opioids I should say called nitizines.
Speaker 4: New Zealand's seen illicit ventanyl use before seven people were
Speaker 4: taken to wide it up a hospital in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: two after taking it empowdered form a class B drug,
Speaker 4: fentanyl can be prescribed for pain relief. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: more than eight thousand people accessed it, but in the
Speaker 4: past year it's the emergence of nitizines, twenty five times
Speaker 4: more potent than ventanyl, that has experts concerned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was about to say, so.
Speaker 1: Netazines are being called the new ventanyl in Europe. I
Speaker 1: know that Bristol alone saw seven deaths and over eighty
Speaker 1: hospitalizations in just one summer after the drug was found
Speaker 1: in a heroin supplies supply. Can you tell me what
Speaker 1: they are and do you agree with this definition that
Speaker 1: they are the new fentanyl?
Speaker 2: You are They actually more potent than fentanyl, and some
Speaker 2: as many as twenty five times more potent than fentanyl.
Speaker 3: Again, we have a.
Speaker 2: Different situation here than Europe, but we do have an
Speaker 2: issue here. Europe has had a long standing heroin use
Speaker 2: population and with Afghanistan no longer producing as much heroin
Speaker 2: and the clamp down there, nitizines are arriving and are
Speaker 2: unfortunately again having really dire consequences for a group of
Speaker 2: people who have opioid addiction in particular. But we are
Speaker 2: seeingnitizines both in Europe and in our out of the
Speaker 2: world Australia and New Zealand entering into our drug market
Speaker 2: in the non opioid side of things as well. So
Speaker 2: particularly in Europe that from what I hear from people
Speaker 2: on the ground, adulteration of benzo diazepines, which over their
Speaker 2: street benzos are super cheap, and we've seen some of
Speaker 2: that occur here as well, and in Australia. Nitizines are
Speaker 2: turning up as methmphetamine and MDMA. So we're already experiencing
Speaker 2: loss of life and we're very worried about what the
Speaker 2: coming months or years might mean for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean netazines. I read somewhere A dose as
Speaker 1: small as a grain of sand can be deadly, especially
Speaker 1: if you don't know if you're taking it. They're showing
Speaker 1: up in more common drugs. People aren't going out to
Speaker 1: seek netazines, are they?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, Well, for example, I visited Canada last year early
Speaker 2: last year and saw and spoke to a number of
Speaker 2: people working on the front line and a number of
Speaker 2: people who had addiction and drug use experience.
Speaker 3: For lack of a better word.
Speaker 2: Indeed, people had started to seek out ventanyl. They wanted
Speaker 2: ventanyl rather than trying to avoid it. Over Here, by
Speaker 2: and large, we still have a community that are wanting
Speaker 2: to test for and avoid neitizines and ventanyl, which is
Speaker 2: really great and what we hope to continue. But there
Speaker 2: are always a group of people that have opioid addiction
Speaker 2: that might be more inclined to seek out a drug
Speaker 2: that might be cheap and very potent.
Speaker 3: So we also try not.
Speaker 2: To judge people and provide harm reduction advice and testing
Speaker 2: so people are best off when they know what it
Speaker 2: is that they're taking. But by and large our community
Speaker 2: here it's still looking to avoid potent opioids and we
Speaker 2: have some new technology to support them. Much I could
Speaker 2: tea about as well.
Speaker 1: That's the thing, hey, I mean, getting your drugs tested
Speaker 1: isn't illegal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's great.
Speaker 2: So New Zealand does have a couple of things on
Speaker 2: our side that other countries haven't had the privilege of having.
Speaker 3: And one of what.
Speaker 2: Is our fully legalized drug checking services, and another is
Speaker 2: our early warning system, which unlike many other places where
Speaker 2: they've even been able to have one, it's got government
Speaker 2: involvement as well as civil society. So we're working together
Speaker 2: on that early warning system and testing people substances to
Speaker 2: better inform the community so that they can make decisions
Speaker 2: get their drugs tested. Actually we give.
Speaker 3: Them harm reduction advice when they come in and get
Speaker 3: their drugs checked as well.
Speaker 2: And another thing we recently got on board was something
Speaker 2: called this is in test strips. So we also have
Speaker 2: fentanyl test strips and they're free, so we can send
Speaker 2: people a pack of test strips so that they can
Speaker 2: test their own substances. If they haven't made it to
Speaker 2: a drug checking clinic or aren't living close enough to one,
Speaker 2: we at least can send them test strips so that
Speaker 2: they can identify if they've got a very potent substance
Speaker 2: in their drug, which I would rarely encourage anyone who's
Speaker 2: taking illictit substances at this point, all counterfeit medications to
Speaker 2: test with nitizine and ventical test strips.
Speaker 1: Is it silly to think that because fentanyl hasn't had
Speaker 1: a huge stronghold in New Zealand, that would be also
Speaker 1: immune to netazines as well.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes and no, we've got a very small population
Speaker 2: who are opioid dependent. But I do think that there
Speaker 2: are groups of our population that would be really severely
Speaker 2: negatively impacted and face overdose fatalities as a result of
Speaker 2: a growing presence of nitizines or potent substances.
Speaker 3: And when I walked.
Speaker 2: Through the streets of Vancouver and Toronto and saw people
Speaker 2: overdosed and no one helping them, I grew very worried
Speaker 2: about our communities.
Speaker 3: That will be more likely to be impacted.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I really don't want that for our people
Speaker 2: here in New Zealand.
Speaker 3: Whether it's the.
Speaker 2: Groups of university students that one of our staff members experienced,
Speaker 2: a loss of a number of her friends at university
Speaker 2: in Canada who had unwittingly taken ventanyl when they were
Speaker 2: consuming ndmay, or the homeless people who are experiencing addiction there.
Speaker 2: For example, the man I tended to on the street
Speaker 2: in Vancouver who had passed out and gone blew, most
Speaker 2: likely from ventanyl. Luckily I was able to help resuscitate him.
Speaker 2: But I don't want that for our homeless community, our
Speaker 2: community of people who take more of society's trickier substances,
Speaker 2: nor our occasional recreational drug users to face fatalities. You know,
Speaker 2: I know people who have lost people in North America
Speaker 2: off the back of somebody accidentally taking the wrong thing.
Speaker 2: So we need to do everything we can to prevent
Speaker 2: being situation.
Speaker 1: It's just heartbreaking. Hey, and I guess on your first
Speaker 1: hand experience, you've seen what happens to communities when this
Speaker 1: drug takes a stronghold. How prepared do you think New
Speaker 1: Zealand is or are we completely unprepared?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've spoken to the good things that we've done,
Speaker 2: which I'm really happy that we have, but we've got
Speaker 2: a long way to go. New Zealand's never really had
Speaker 2: an overdose strategy or plan. We've ignored the overdose fatalities
Speaker 2: we've had. We've rested on our laurels, thinking we don't
Speaker 2: have as many as other people. Actually we're losing I
Speaker 2: think from memories, something like one hundred and seventy New
Speaker 2: Zealanders each year to overdose a couple each week, and
Speaker 2: we could do better anyway. But in terms of being
Speaker 2: prepared for more of a concerning presence of very potient opioids,
Speaker 2: there's a number of things.
Speaker 3: That we could do.
Speaker 2: We released a plan of types of overdose interventions that
Speaker 2: we need to put in place, but I would point
Speaker 2: to a few in particular. There's a medicine called na
Speaker 2: lozone the Americans call it NACAN, and we have been
Speaker 2: over several years whittling away at the system trying to
Speaker 2: unlock that for the community. So where we've gotten to
Speaker 2: is that there are some injectable forms of this iner
Speaker 2: lockzone that are available at needle exchanges, but we still
Speaker 2: don't have proper access to a nasal spray variety which
Speaker 2: would be more able to be given out and used
Speaker 2: by lay people. So we have put in a funding
Speaker 2: application to pharmac and the committee that is in charge
Speaker 2: of these things are recommended it be funded. Now we're
Speaker 2: just waiting to see if it makes it into the budget.
Speaker 2: That would be a big important thing to have because
Speaker 2: you can imagine, say you have an event at a
Speaker 2: university orientation and suddenly there are a bunch of people
Speaker 2: overdosing having narcan or no locks on there on hand.
Speaker 3: So it's not only the potence of the substance.
Speaker 2: That time that it takes with somebody to shift from
Speaker 2: overdose to a fatality is very short, so waiting.
Speaker 3: For the ambulance can be too long that the person
Speaker 3: may die.
Speaker 2: So having the lock zone on hand and available at
Speaker 2: events of high risk or say a first responder who's
Speaker 2: not an ambulance turns up, having them being able to
Speaker 2: carry in a locks own, let alone the drug user
Speaker 2: themselves and the people who love them and.
Speaker 3: Are around them. So we'd really like to see that
Speaker 3: made available.
Speaker 5: Two things that I've seen over and over again that
Speaker 5: many people can't believe if they're outside of the drug world,
Speaker 5: is that people who use drugs are often buried, community
Speaker 5: minded and also don't care about our health. When we're
Speaker 5: able to the needland s fringe program in Australia had
Speaker 5: saved four dollars for every dollar invested. When you extended
Speaker 5: that beyond just a horizon of a few years and
Speaker 5: then started putting in things like opening doors to mental
Speaker 5: health skin infections that return balloons to twelve dollars.
Speaker 2: We also don't have a number of the things that
Speaker 2: other countries have created, for example, overdose prevention centers or
Speaker 2: supervised drug use spaces.
Speaker 3: We created a.
Speaker 2: Proposal for one in conjunction with a number of the
Speaker 2: key players in Auckland and inner city Auckland. We'd really
Speaker 2: like to see one at least tried in New Zealand,
Speaker 2: particularly that will serve a population who regular users of
Speaker 2: drugs and don't have anywhere else to be to safely
Speaker 2: take the drug. If you supervise people, the evidence shows
Speaker 2: it is incredibly effective at preventing fatalities, and it also
Speaker 2: has a positive effect on fatalities on the neighboring area,
Speaker 2: and it has a general uplift in those people's health
Speaker 2: impact as well.
Speaker 1: Tell me about that. So is it a designated space
Speaker 1: for regular drug users to take drugs but they're supervised.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: So there's a famous one in our backyard, Sydney Uniting Church.
Speaker 2: Melbourne's got one that are all over Canada these days
Speaker 2: and a number of other place and there's tons of evidence.
Speaker 2: I've been around for a very long time at this point,
Speaker 2: so the fact we don't have one is political, historical
Speaker 2: anomaly and a bit of a pain really. So the
Speaker 2: spaces where the people who might otherwise be at risk
Speaker 2: of overdose can come and take their drug, somebody like
Speaker 2: a nurse or indeed in some a doctor supervises their
Speaker 2: consumption and then they're able to administer CPR and a
Speaker 2: lockzone whatever is needed if the person overdoses. They're very
Speaker 2: effective at preventing death, which is the key thing. And
Speaker 2: you can imagine coming into a service like that might
Speaker 2: increase your expectation for your health and wellbeing, encourage you
Speaker 2: to have conversations with people and have a positive effect
Speaker 2: over above staying alive.
Speaker 3: Which is one of the goals of harm reduction. Responses
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: You can see why it's controversial though, Hey, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's just a hop, skip and a jump
Speaker 1: away from decriminalizing drugs altogether, but it seems like it
Speaker 1: has good evidence that it works and is at least
Speaker 1: a gateway for people to get help. Hey, should we
Speaker 1: be thinking about decriminalizing some drugs?
Speaker 2: Yeah, just to touch on that, Sydney's had an overdose
Speaker 2: center a uniting.
Speaker 3: Church for decades now and.
Speaker 2: They haven't legalized or decriminalized, so it is possible to
Speaker 2: do these things without controversy. They did it in response
Speaker 2: to the level of fatality they were experiencing back in
Speaker 2: the I can't remember which decade it is, eighties or nineties,
Speaker 2: Sorry for that.
Speaker 3: And yes, we do think that we need to look
Speaker 3: at our drug laws.
Speaker 2: Our drug laws have found a number of things from
Speaker 2: happening and prevent people seeking help. They prevent them having
Speaker 2: conversations with people, and in truth, there's things that we
Speaker 2: could do on both the regulation side when we think
Speaker 2: about lower harm substances, for example, or putting people on
Speaker 2: prescription medication instead. But in terms of law reform, we
Speaker 2: badly need to look at law reform and criminalizing people
Speaker 2: certainly help and it has no evidence of working to
Speaker 2: discourage drug use or is a prevention against addiction or
Speaker 2: anything of the sort. In fact, it's easier and New
Speaker 2: Zealand sadly to land yourself in prison than it is
Speaker 2: to get help because of the long waiting lists to
Speaker 2: get help. So yeah, we're a fan of shifting our
Speaker 2: resource and attention back in the direction of help and
Speaker 2: harm reduction.
Speaker 1: And finally, I guess we've touched on this a little bit.
Speaker 1: What can the government do to protect us from experiencing
Speaker 1: something like an opioid epidemic like that in the US
Speaker 1: and what we're seeing emerge in Europe.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think there's a number of protective things I
Speaker 3: could do to prevent the.
Speaker 2: Fatalities or other really negative impacts occurring. If we actually
Speaker 2: want to prevent the drugs from arriving, we need to
Speaker 2: look at changing our drug laws and having some sort
Speaker 2: of regulated approach to substances rather than just ban and police.
Speaker 2: But there's a number of things we could do to
Speaker 2: prevent mass fatalities like have occurred overseas, and we're very
Speaker 2: thankful for the few things that we do have here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Sarah. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 1: stories and extensive news coverage at enzed Herald dot co
Speaker 1: dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles
Speaker 1: with sound engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.