Kiwis are paying through the nose for party drugs in New Zealand. (video first published in May 2018)Party drug MDMA – essentially ecstasy –is on the rise in New Zealand but an “unusual” spike came after someone seemingly flushed about $1.7 million of the party drug down a central Auckland toilet. When Customs intercepted 5 kilograms of the drug at the border in 2017 it was given a street value of $2.1m, giving the amount down the central Auckland wastewater system – about 4kg – an estimated value of $1.7m. An August police briefing to Police Minister Chris Hipkins, released under the Official Information Act, shows that wastewater testing was done in May – covering 33 sites nationally and 66% of the population – when a spike in MDMA was found. It was deemed as being dumped prior to being used because there was no following increase in metabolite, a by-product of using MDMA.

Source: Stuff December 11, 2022 04:43 UTC