Meth use hits record high as election campaigning starts

The Kākā by Bernard Hickey

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Meth use hits record high as election campaigning starts

Meth use hits 2m/week in April; Opportunity below 5% in new poll; ACT & NZ First campaign to pull out of Paris; Greens propose KiwiMart; National to double income threshold for 1st home loan to $300k

Bernard Hickey

Sep 06, 2026

∙ Paid

Meth use surged in 2024, and testing continues to reveal record high usage. Photo: Getty Images

Mōrena. The six things to know this morning in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate are:

The depth of Aotearoa’s poverty and health crises was highlighted again in Derek Cheng’s front page report for The NZ Herald-$1 showing a record-high two million meth doses were taken across the motu in one week in April. The numbers came from a Ministry of Justice briefing with data from waste water testing. (See more in Chart of the day and Front Page of the Day below)

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