Illegal drug prices stable, seemingly unaffected by inflation

The prices of some illicit drugs in the country have remained stable, seemingly unaffected by the soaring inflation that the food and fuel cost.

And a few police-metered drugs, such as methamphetamine sold by the gram, have actually fallen in price in the past six months.

New drug price data released by the National Drug Intelligence Bureau (NDIB) compared the prices of seven illicit drugs between November 2021 and July 22 and showed that most remained relatively stable.

Prices for illegal drugs are generally more expensive in the South Island and cheapest in Auckland.

READ MORE:
* Recreational ketamine use is likely to surpass cocaine in popularity in New Zealand
* Nationwide meth use dropped by almost a third during and after lockdown
* Coronavirus: Meth prices double in parts of New Zealand during Covid-19 lockdown

Cocaine, Hemp, ephedrineand GHB/GBL they all saw stable prices from the beginning to the end of the period.

Police collect the national average data that relies on informants and police officers reporting the information — making the data only as reliable as the sources, giving some drugs a range of awards.

Cocaine, for example, will be priced at $400 per gram in November 2021, while it will be $400-500 per gram for July 2022.

Inspector Blair MacdonaldNDIB executive, said most drug prices were legacy-based, meaning the $20 can of cannabis, a $400 bag of cocaine, or a $40 MDMA cap would always remain a comparable price.

“It doesn’t seem to fluctuate regardless of the cost of a plane ticket from the Netherlands to New Zealand… the margins are so significant with these drugs that whether you’re making 800% profit or 700% profit, it doesn’t seem to affect that bottom line. move,” he said.

Macdonald said a lower price or higher overhead probably wouldn’t mean the drug would be less pure or less available, but he did think there were price movements at the wholesale level.

Methamphetamine sold by the gram, a venture that led to billions of dollars in social damage in New Zealand, is down 30% from $500g to $350g in the last seven months.

Other amounts of meth have not changed in price over the period, but a gram, what a user would buy, had the most competition, the man who New Zealand Drug Alert System said.

“If I had to pick one drug that would move the most in price, it would be” methamphetamine due to the quantities sold,” he said.

Macdonald said organized crime has evolved with Covid restrictions and prices have returned to normal.

“Drug prices are stable, but they have just been on that gradual decline, but where we are now strongly reflects the market as to where we were before March 2020,” he said.

Brendon Warne, founder of the Department of Anti-P, said he saw the price of methamphetamine even lower, at $200 per gram in Auckland and Northland. However, the dollar bag, a $100 bag of meth, did not change in price.

This, he said, made it easier for users to get caught up in the cycle of selling the drug to pay for their addiction.

“That’s the thing right now, people are just desperate for customers, there’s so much meth here it’s an epidemic.

“Next thing they get busted for supplying methamphetamine,” he said.

Warne said people came to him for help at the bottom and he saw the violence caused by the drug seep through society.

Associate Professor Chris Wilkins said the “overwhelming component” in drug pricing poses a risk to the criminal organizations.

“The only reason they’re expensive is that they’re illegal,” said Wilkins, head of the research team at Massey University.

“In the source countries, you can grow drugs for pennies and then sell it to a selling country for a lot of money,” he said, citing cocaine that can be made in Colombia for $0.10 grams, but in New York for $100. grams.

Wilkins said black market consumers didn’t have many options to shop around and had to rely on established ways to buy drugs.

Wilkins said the price of methamphetamine had fallen from $1,000 per gram to $250 over 10 years before the pandemic. After rising with the pandemic, it was on its way back down.

As massive drug seizures make headlines, Wilkins said the price was a better indicator of drug enforcement in New Zealand and because drugs are so profitable, any costs to organized crime resulting from an arrest could be easily absorbed.