A community worker is calling on drug addicts to seek help for their addictions to stop children from following in their footsteps.
Methamphetamine use has significantly increased and remained elevated since the COVID-19 lockdown in August last year.
Police wastewater figures show use more than doubled between July and September 2021, and has stayed well above the historical average right through to January 2022, the most recent available figures showed.
The rate at which children use meth has increased over the last few years, with kids as young as eight years old caught using the drug.
A drug counsellor is expecting demand for her services to grow amid the spike.
"People who use methamphetamine more than once a week are at risk of developing more severe harm, usually physical health problems, mental health problems or development of an addiction that requires specialist support," Vicki Macfarlane, lead clinician at CADS Detox Services told Newshub.
Adrian Pritchard, a community worker based in Hastings and a former drug addict, told Newshub Late on Wednesday adults need to take more responsibility to stop children from using drugs.
"An eight-year-old doesn't wake up one morning and say they are going to get a pipe and use meth, where is the money coming from," Pritchard told the host of Newshub Late Ingrid Hipkiss.
"So either something is happening at home and from my experience from working in the community, the home is where it starts."
Pritchard said some kids are lacking role models in their life and is urging parents to step up and tackle their own drug addictions.
"People need to start being honest, don't try to hide it because you can't hide an addiction, it comes out sooner or later," he said.
"It starts with the parents, if the parents seek help and if they honestly speak and they are open, and I'm talking about gang members too, then it's going to flutter down to the children."
Dr Chris Wilkins, a drug policy researcher at Massey University, said meth use is a symptom of poverty and lack of opportunity.
Some people probably started smoking the drug simply due to the boredom of lockdowns, he said.
But Pritchard believes the increased meth use is not down to boredom, it's down to stress.
"I don't think it's boredom, I think it's stress. I think kids today, they are under a lot of stress, especially if they're not getting loved at home and they aren't getting accepted at home," he told Newshub Late.
Pritchard said kids who are using meth most likely are lacking role models at home.
"Who are they going to look for? Who are they going to role model? Their role models are supposed to be at their own home?" he questioned.
Pritchard believes kids are getting their drugs from parents who leave them lying around the home because they're "so wasted".
"Their parents most of the time are cuckoo, they're out of it, they're wasted," he said.
"They leave meth on the floor, tables, around the kitchen or they might even leave meth in the pipe because they're so wasted, so out of it that they don't know what they are doing, it's shocking," he said.
Pritchard said he tries to motivate people in the community, councillors and DHBs, to go to addicts' homes to see what is actually going on there.
Watch the full interview with Adrian Pritchard above.
