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Drug use imposes a range of health and social costs on New Zealand including death, illness, mental health problems, injuries from accidents, domestic violence, family and relationship breakdown, and child neglect.1 Monitoring population trends in drug use is important in developing responses to emerging drug problems, and also for evaluating the effectiveness of existing responses.1
There have been several changes in drug use and drug policy in New Zealand over the past 10 years or so. There has been a liberalisation of the alcohol environment since 1989, which culminated in the lowering of the alcohol purchase age to 18 years old in 1999.2,3
The Government has implemented a range of initiatives to reduce the use and social impacts of tobacco use--including increased taxation of tobacco products; mass media campaigns encouraging users to seek help to stop use; and the imposition of smoke free areas in workplaces, restaurants, and bars.4
The Government's response to the emergence of methamphetamine has included the reclassification of methamphetamine to the highest Class A category of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, additional resources and powers given to Police and Customs involved in drug enforcement, the negotiation of a Memorandum of Understanding with the New Zealand Chemical Industry Council to monitor the sale of chemical precursors that can be used to clandestinely manufacture methamphetamine, and the development at a local level of protocols with pharmacies to notify police of suspicious purchases of medicines containing pseudoephedrine.5
Trends in the use and regulation of high-profile substances should be viewed in the wider context of trends for other drug types in New Zealand. While national data on drug use in New Zealand has been collected fairly regularly over the past 8 years using the same survey methodology,6-8 extensions to the original survey design have made comparisons over the entire period of national surveying somewhat difficult. The age ranges of the samples surveyed have been extended in recent waves and some new drug types have been included.
The national surveys of drug use have regularly collected data concerning changes in the level of use of each drug type, but the nature of the data collected has made it difficult to assess overall changes in the level of use of substances between survey waves.
The aim...