The latest New Zealand Drugs Trends Survey (NZDTS) shows the price of the class A drug had fallen from $563 per gram in 2017 to $334/g in 2025; after adjusting for inflation, the price dropped even further to $253/g, which represented a 55% drop since 2017.
Massey University NZDTS research team leader Prof Chris Wilkins said the greatest declines for both "point" and "gram" prices were reported in Southland/West Coast, Otago, Tasman/Nelson/Marlborough, and Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay.
"Some of the interesting things that we’ve been finding about the South Island is, traditionally, the price has been much higher ...
"The cheapest prices were always in the central North Island, Auckland, Northland ...
"But what’s happened just recently is that in places like the West Coast, Southland and Otago, they are actually the places where there’s been the biggest decline in the price."
He said that inevitably meant there had been an increase in use in those areas over the past year.
"It’s just the law of economics, particularly for current users.
"If you’re someone who buys a product pretty regularly and then the price of it halves, you naturally buy more — maybe quite a lot more.
"It makes that product more attractive to people on low incomes or young people who have less disposable income.
"So it’s a concern all around in terms of how much that price has declined."
Prof Wilkins said higher and more frequent use of meth was linked to greater harms, like dependency, psychosis and pressures on partners and family relationships.
"The role meth plays in a range of negative health and social outcomes is currently largely masked by stigma with users reluctant to disclose, and routine statistics that do not investigate causes for events such as admissions to emergency departments, partner and family assaults, community violence and work accidents and unsafe driving or the background issues, such as untreated trauma and mental illness."
While the survey showed an increasing frequency of meth use nationwide, he said the number of people reporting use remained static, which suggested present users were taking advantage of price declines to use more, rather than an increasing number of new users overall.
"The percentage of high frequency users in the survey, who use meth weekly or more often, has almost doubled, increasing from 27% in 2018 to 57% in 2025.
"The percentage of surveyed users purchasing weekly or more often is increasing at a similar rate."
He said the growing consumption and lower prices were the result of a massive increase in meth supply to New Zealand. It traditionally came from Asia, but now included Mexican cartels via Canada, the United States and the Pacific Islands.
"This is fuelling organised crime and corruption and serious negative health and social impacts in the Pacific, including growing injecting and rates of HIV, but also family harm and community stress.
"Many Pacific nations do not have the health and enforcement resources and governance infrastructure to deal with these serious problems ... there is a risk of the undermining of democracy, rule of law and social stability, with flow-on implications for New Zealand and Australia."
The annual survey provides a snapshot of drug trends via an anonymous online survey of more than 8800 people.
It asks respondents about drug use patterns, market prices, views on drug policy, help services and barriers to seeking help and harm reduction initiatives.
