Mad on Meth

Why cook at home when you can order in?

Only 50 years ago, pure methamphetamine was legally prescribed in New Zealand to anyone looking for a boost. But it wasn't long before P was rebranded as the most dangerous and destructive drug in the world - and New Zealanders cemented as among its biggest users.

With dry wit and biting insight, journalist Benedict Collins takes us inside the evolution of meth in New Zealand. From ram raids for pseudoephedrine to our own cooks and gangs 'breaking bad', a visit to the Golden Triangle of meth production in South-East Asia, multimillion-dollar busts, and a moral panic that seeded a meth-testing scandal. All set the stage for unthinkable crimes and drug-fuelled mania, but also serviced a hidden world of white-collar users - and cemented New Zealand's reputation as among the biggest meth consumers in the world.

How did tough on crime become dumb on drugs? And what does a solution to Pure addiction look like?

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'A terrific, gripping read that challenges us to think differently about one of New Zealand's biggest problems.'

Jarrod Gilbert, bestselling author of Patched: The History of Gangs in New Zealand

'Engrossing and written with flair, Benedict Collins tells the story of how demonising drugs and drug users causes more harm than good. The upside is: there is a better way.'

Professor Michael Baker, co-author of 'Minimising the Harms from Methamphetamine' (NZ Drug Foundation/Helen Clark Foundation)

Benedict Collins is a political journalist working for 1News in the press gallery in Wellington. From day dot as a reporter, he's had a strong interest in covering anything to do with illicit drugs and enforcement. He's covered punitive drug-testing sanctions applied to beneficiaries, attempts to legalise pill-testing at festivals, the 2020 cannabis referendum, and in 2018 helped expose a meth-testing scandal which revealed government, landlords and homeowners wasting hundreds of millions of dollars.

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