WELLBEING METH ADDICTION
Just one hit Harriet Bremner warns of the dangers of meth use in the dairying industry.
I Harriet Bremner and Poppy.
84
have never seen it (never want to), have never been around anyone or know of anyone who is associated with it but I was blown away to find out that every single one of us knows someone who knows someone, who is a regular user of the powerful drug, methamphetamine, also known as P. It is wrecking lives. It doesn’t matter where in New Zealand you are. This is a drug so powerful that even one hit is one too many. More readily available than cannabis AKA weed and even cigarettes (you don’t have to pay a dealer straight up),138,000 New Zealanders are highly involved in this $500 million dollar per year industry that is wreaking havoc on our people and our communities. I have only heard people talking about the issue with weed within the dairy industry and what farmers have had to do to try and combat it. This is what scares me so much about P, that we are naive to how easily people can become hooked and how there will be someone we know who is involved in the game. It is on the corner of our streets, in our towns and highly accessible to anyone and everyone we know, including teenagers. It is not something that requires a ‘bad’
upbringing for someone to be involved in, it is amongst people from all walks of life and it is scary to think how many of our dairy farmers could be at work while they are under the influence of such a life-absorbing drug. In 2020, Newshub journalist Patrick Gower did a documentary on weed but this he claims was easier to talk about since it has a medical angle attached to it. However, P is disliked by everyone involved; the people who produce it, sell it and buy it. In Patrick’s new documentary on P, he says that it has taken over NZ and that putting people into jail isn’t the answer - there needs to be medical intervention to help people become free of the drug. Not an easy task because ‘P’ takes away all the dopamine from your brain for 14 months. That first hit is 10 times the rush you get from something that gives you a natural high. The trouble is, you want more as you are desperately trying to fulfill that rush again. But it never happens again. Then you are left with nothing, nothing to give you the simple joys in life again and only a yearning for the drug itself. Psychologists call it ‘chasing the dragon’. The harm of this drug is that it destroys everything in your life. It takes away
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2021
