A recovering methamphetamine addict says she was so hooked on the drug she even used while she was in labour.
In an interview with NZME, as part of its series on New Zealand's meth crisis, Darnell Rumbal said the addiction was "stronger than my will to stop".
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"With my youngest boy, even during pregnancy I used. I couldn't stop using," she told NZME.
"I went into labour six weeks early … When I went to the hospital and I was being monitored my friend turned up and had gear. I knew he had gear and even though I was in labour and even though I knew I was risking my child and I was in the hospital, I still said to him, have you got a puff? And he said yes, so we went into the toilets and I got high," she told NZME.
Rumbal, of Bay of Plenty, is now more than a year clean.
Last year, the number of charges for the use and supply of methamphetamine hit at a 10-year high.
"[We need] prevention and also drug treatment and making sure that drug treatment is available to people, including people in the regions where methamphetamine is often the biggest problem," Massey University leading drug researcher Associate Professor Chris Wilkins said last year.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the war against methamphetamine had failed and a health approach was needed.
"If we want to get to the issue, we actually have to look at what drives people's drug use in the first place," Ardern told The AM Show last March.
"It's one thing to look at supply - dealing with people who are using solely through the criminal justice system hasn't worked. We do need to make sure we have proper services."
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