Methamphetamine is growing more scarce both at New Zealand borders and in the pockets of party people as Kiwis look for a preferred drug high, new figures suggest.
The number of pills used to make the drug P seized by Customs has dropped by more than half since 2009, the New Zealand Herald reports.
Seizures of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine tablets have dropped from 5.4 million pills in 2009 to 4.3 million last year, and just 1.9 million have been found so far this year.
The findings fit with a recent Massey University study that suggested use of pure methamphetamine in New Zealand may be declining.
Dr Chris Wilkins, the co-author of the annual Illicit Drug Monitoring System study, said the per-gram price of methamphetamine had increased, and the drug's availability and potency had decreased, suggesting the highly addictive product may have "had its day".
He said the government's 2010 action plan to disrupt supply by banning over-the-counter sales of key ingredient pseudoephedrine could be responsible for the drop.
"We were aware that the government had put in place its methamphetamine action plan over the course of 2010 and we were interested to see what impact that had," Dr Wilkins told the newspaper.
"There seems to be a case to say that the government plan has been making an impact.
"Certainly that increase in the gram price is really unusual when you look at international experience."
The figures show almost 20 million tablets, enough to brew about 1.2 tonnes of P, were seized in 3743 incidents since 2006.
P costs about $1000 a gram to buy on the street.
NZN