Whāngāra Mai Tawhiti at Te Matatini 2025, led by All Blacks haka composer Sir Derek Lardelli. Their haka, called “Kaikino”, was a call to action against the scourge of meth addiction. (Photo Te Matatini Enterprises)

In the wake of the spiritual uplift of Te Matatini, writes Denis O’Reilly, we should be positioning meth as an erosive threat to tino rangatiratanga — a coloniser of mind and spirit.

The motu was surely buoyed by the ihi and wehi generated by Te Matatini. The pātaka wairuatanga was full to overflowing.

But after the tribal caravans headed home from Taranaki, many whānau returned to communities under siege.

While some people have expressed concern over the presence of Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea, China presents another threat as a major source of a substance that brings destruction to our whānau and communities in a much more potent and close way — namely through the aggressive supply of methamphetamine.

Te Matatini is about indigeneity. But not one atom, not one molecule of methamphetamine is indigenous to Aotearoa. It is a lethal invader, colonising the mind of the user as surely as foreign systems and patterns of thinking colonise our society.

I come into this kōrero not to denigrate users, but rather to encourage us all to support them to liberate themselves from the mental slavery of this initially appealing but ultimately mind-destroying substance.

I don’t come from on-high, either. At a point in my life, I would hoover up meth like, well, like an ophthalmologist! I enjoyed the flood of dopamine and felt righteous, believing I had a firm grip on my life and was functioning well. I was deluded.

It took the dual streams of the meth-induced suicide of a close friend and the loving but firm disapproval of my wife and whānau to bring me to my senses. I have now been clean for over 20 years. But I’m still wary that if I had a sniff, a huff of a pipe, my addictive self would run amok.

And in those 20 years of recovery, I’ve tried to combat the presence of meth in our communities. I’ve undertaken research. I’ve run seminars and information campaigns. I’ve marched in heartfelt but pointless protests.

In my fear of my own weakness and predilection, I’ve lectured and demonised, and in doing so, I alienated user friends and whānau. Slowly acquired wisdom and insight have taught me to be less judgmental and more loving.

But I feel compelled to sound the alarm again because Aotearoa is currently being flooded with meth, and I know that another substance, fentanyl, is just around the corner. Kia hiwa ra! Forewarned is forearmed.

I don’t want to get into a moral debate about legal versus illegal intoxicants. Our most widely used drug is alcohol, and it ranks in first, second, and third place in terms of social destruction and health harms in Aotearoa.

But there is something especially destructive about meth that makes it so worrisome. And in my view, this is why: It switches off the aroha response in the user’s brain chemistry.

I concede I’m a layman. However, here’s my informed but unqualified cut on what happens. When we ingest methamphetamine, it floods our neural system, our brain chemicals, with dopamine. It feels good, very good. That’s why people take it.

We already produce dopamine naturally. To my understanding, this happens when we see a loved one, experience an uplifting moment, witness a spine-chilling haka, or hear a beautiful waiata. It’s that feeling we get when we come over a hill and see our favourite beach or our kāinga tūturu. That’s a little shot of dopamine that carouses through our neural pathways and across synapses and lifts our mood.

However, when we take a line or pipe of methamphetamine — or inject it into our blood vessels — we damage the natural transmission of dopamine. This unnatural process requires increasing amounts of methamphetamine just to feel good, let alone experience those first highs.

When we’re unable to access it, we feel awful. It’s the beginning of an illness associated with meth use. It’s called anhedonia, the inability to experience natural pleasure — and, to me, this is what I witness when I see previously wonderful parents turn into callous shitheads.

Meth use and whānau wellbeing are mutually exclusive.

Te Whāngāra Mai Tawhiti from the East Coast, led by All Blacks haka composer Sir Derek Lardelli, at Matatini, calling attention to the impact of meth addiction in Māori communities. (Photo: Te Matatini Enterprises)

What to do? Well, at a governmental level, we’ve tried the hammer. We reclassified meth from a B-class illicit substance to an A-class drug with increased penalties for possession, distribution and manufacture.

We’ve tried to control supply. However, we’re a trading nation with huge volumes of inbound containerised cargo in which every drum or item could contain meth or a precursor. Over three million travellers visited New Zealand last year, each with multiple items of luggage. We have long coastlines. Our borders are porous.

You will read from time to time of seizures at airports: clothing soaked in methamphetamine or pure meth simply packaged in suitcases. You might think, “Hey, victory”, and feel that Customs is doing a great job. They are, and all power to them and the police’s offshore intelligence operatives.

But here’s the rub. Worldwide, best practice rates of interception at the border are assessed at about 20 percent. Whoa! Seize one-fifth, but then multiply each seizure by four, and gulp when you realise that that’s the amount that eventually hits the street.

Effective border control, policing, and strong law enforcement aimed at offshore cartels and distribution networks must be enabled and continued. But, as I’ve illustrated, even if we dramatically upped our game, significant amounts would still slip through.

The long-term solution is reducing demand. That’s easier said than done.

The devil plays a seductive tune. People use meth because it makes them feel good. Initially, at least. It’s a functional drug, and users can continue to operate well at their jobs if they can get a supply.

But slow fuse or fast fuse, users’ lives and relationships will start to disintegrate. Financing their habit will consume their income because they’ll need increasing amounts, and their mental and physical wellbeing will deteriorate.

However, methamphetamine addiction can be overcome. From my observation — and I’ve worked in this sector for nigh on 20 years — it’s an easier drug to quit physically than either alcohol or nicotine.

Meth has its peculiarities. While all addiction recovery is a personal journey down a lonesome valley, this one absolutely requires the help and support of whānau and friends.

“Meth is an erosive threat to tino rangatiratanga, a coloniser of the mind and spirit.”

And herein lies an opportunity, in the wake of the spiritual uplift of Te Matatini, to position meth as an erosive threat to tino rangatiratanga — as a coloniser of mind and spirit. We can enrol our meth-using whānau in a national movement to self-prohibit the presence of this substance in our home, in our kāinga, in our hapū, in our iwi.

In the 1980s, the late Canon Wi Te Tau Huata used to encourage us to join in a movement he called “moral rearmament”. It was the good canon himself who composed “Tutira mai nga iwi”, and within that waiata, he had the line “Kia tapatahi”: to stand shoulder to shoulder with one another.

We need moral rearmament, and a side-by-side approach once more.

Methamphetamine users are across all sectors of society. If you have a friend or whānau member who is trapped in addiction, recognise that you’re not facing this alone. You don’t need to feel shame.

First, front up and face the reality of meth use as you encounter it in your own whānau or community. It’s difficult to confront without demonising the user, so what I’m proposing is a two-pronged aroha-laden approach.

The first prong is focused on the individual user. Part of the help a user requires is practical and emotional, particularly in the first stages of withdrawal.

The received wisdom is that a person going through withdrawal needs residential treatment. In my experience — although it might be easier on the whānau for someone to go off and get “cured” elsewhere — residential treatment is required only in a minority of cases, and generally it’s because the addicted person has experienced some sort of psychosis.

Staying within the community means that the collective of whānau and friends need to set up barriers, preventing “user” friends and acquaintances (often themselves suppliers) from accessing those on the journey to recovery.

Physically, those in recovery will experience extreme fatigue, sleeping most of the day for two to four days. Their sleep patterns will remain disturbed. They may experience hallucinations. This can go on for weeks.

They will have reduced appetite and may suffer from malnourishment, so you need to feed them up with soups and tasty snacks. Prioritise protein, beef, fish, pork, chicken, eggs, salads and veggies.

Those in early recovery will suffer from a dry mouth, headaches, and even muscle spasms. Minimise the use of sugar — it uses the same neural pathways as meth. The person in recovery will need lots of fluid, primarily water with a pinch of salt. They may have intense cravings.

Emotionally — and this will persist for weeks if not months — those in withdrawal will suffer from the depression, anxiety, and paranoia associated with anhedonia, and the lack of motivation or low energy associated with anergia.

Encourage and reaffirm them. Remind them that the brain, body and soul need time to heal, and acknowledge that the recovery journey is very hard and withdrawal is often painful. Compliment them for their courage.

Most communities have free mental health and addiction services readily available.

Act as an advocate for your help-seeking friend or whānau member. Get the help-seeker a full medical examination. Get an oral health assessment. Meth takes an awful toll on the gums and teeth. Often, long-term users suffer terrible pain from gum disease and rotting teeth, and freedom from that pain can assist recovery dramatically.

Encourage the help-seeker to undergo regular drug testing both as a measure of accountability and a metric of their recovery.

The second prong is activation.

Reach out locally to those facing the same challenge. Collaborate. Position the struggle as one of mana motuhake, as a reclaiming of tino rangatiratanga. Approach the fight to reduce the demand for methamphetamine with the same enthusiasm and commitment as we do with Toitū Te Tiriti.

Let’s do what we can to reduce demand and promote recovery from methamphetamine. It is another liberation struggle. Mauri ora!

Where to find help:         

Narcotics Anonymous: 0800 628 632
Alcohol & Drug Helpline: 0800 787 797
Or free text: 8681
Māori Helpline: 0800 787 798
Pasifika Helpline: 0800 787 799
Youth Line: 0800 787 984

E-Tangata, 2025