CAN BRAINS BOUNCE BACK? –
May 5, 2023 – New Zealanders are some of the world’s biggest meth takers: wastewater testing has placed it in the top four consumers worldwide. The country’s physical isolation – 4,000km from the nearest major ports – makes importing hard drugs challenging and costly, but meth can be manufactured relatively cheaply and easily, and is derived from available pharmaceuticals. Almost a third of middle-aged New Zealanders have tried the drug, a University of Otago study found in 2020.
In the backroom of Mātai research centre, Irwin thinks back to when it all started. He was a teenager when he tried P for the first time – trying to impress a girl on New Year’s Eve, in his home town of Porirua, Wellington. The girlfriend didn’t last, but the drug was love at first puff, he says, and would become one of the defining relationships of his life. “I remember it was the next day, the sun had risen, I was still awake with the people at the table I’d been smoking with. And I was instantly trying to find ways: how can we make money to get more?” Within a few years, he would be smoking every day.
