Drug trends

The cocaine market in New Zealand is not big and has rarely been the focus of media attention or the cause of a significant number of hospital admissions in recent years. The cocaine market has remained stable with high prices and low availability.

Recent surveys indicate that:

• the median cost of cocaine in 2005 was $300 per gram
• 75 percent of participants said that cocaine’s street price has been stable in the past six months
• 36 percent of participants indicated that availability of cocaine had become ‘more difficult’ in the past six months.
• between 1996 and1998 there were 23 cases of cocaine admissions to publicly funded hospitals
• in 1998 only 4.4 percent of survey participants had ever tried cocaine and 1.1 percent had tried cocaine in the past year.
• in 1998 0.8 percent of survey participants had tried crack cocaine and 0.2 percent had tried crack cocaine in the past year.
• in 2001 3.2 percent of participants had tried cocaine and 0.6 percent had tried cocaine in the past year. Only 0.3 percent were current users.