In many ways methamphetamine has created something of a „speed“ hump in the road towards drug law reform and the dispensing of the war on drugs in favour of so called „health“ based models. There is an inconvenient reality to this most potent of central nervous system stimulant that tends to be glossed over in the conversations which tend to gravitate around the harmlessness of marijuana use and the perceived hypocrisy that exists with harm stemming from substances such as tobacco and alcohol. The modern history of methamphetamine is a minefield of uncomfortable truths about the outwardly pervasive harm that flows from the addiction this drug so readily creates. Indeed harm minimisation or reduction with crystal methamphetamine could be likened to giving someone a crash helmet to break their fall out of a ten story building. Methamphetamine has shattered the romantic notion of so called rec- reational drug use the all too familiar destruc- tive behaviour is something even the most ardent supporter of drug law reform finds more challenging to justify. If the primary justification for dispensing with prohibitionist laws is their limited efficacy with respect to drugs, should we also accept that similar laws have failed to address everything from burglary to rape and murder, and therefore we should dispense with these laws also? Should we also dispense with civil and common law rights, as breaches of these are so common? Like a family needs rules and guidelines, so does society. To dispense entirely with laws and rules which have been failing us could see the pendulum swing far beyond the balance that is required. Methamphetamine has put a timeline on our need to achieve the balance between health and the need for any society to have effective boundaries, as the harm that f lows from its use is not the users alone. Isn't it in achieving the right balance that our collective energies and resources be placed? Mike Sabin, is a former New Zealand Police Clan Lab specialist and founder of MethCon Group Ltd, a company specialising in educa- tion, research and policy related to meth- amphetamine. Mr. Sabin spent 12 years in the New Zealand Police, specialising early in his career in the area of drug enforcement. He worked on surveillance operations, elec- tronic interception and undercover opera- tions, before becoming one of New Zealand's first specialist Clandestine Drug Laboratory investigators responsible for investigating and dismantling meth labs. Early in 2006, Mr. Sabin left the Police hav - ing founded MethCon Group Ltd in late 2005, in the belief that law enforcement interventions have a disappointingly limited efficacy with regard to methamphetamine and a more balanced approach was needed to address what had become New Zealand's worst ever drug problem. MethCon Group Ltd is the only organisation of its kind in the world, and a multiple award winning organisation, having won business awards, a national leadership award and is currently in the running for a national entrepreneur of the year award. Mr. Sabin spent 18 months researching the methamphetamine problem in New Zealand and across the world looking to identify what works and what doesn‘t, to reduce the prevalence of the drug. The aim of this research was to inf luence more robust and effective policy and legislative responses while seeking to develop a more comprehensive and balanced approach to addressing methamphetamine use and prevalence. This research was compiled in a white paper, Solutions to the Methamphetamine Crisis in New Zealand: A Study of Supply and Demand- Side Interventions and their Efficacy. This was presented to New Zealand Members of Parliament and government officials in late May 2008.

First global conference on methamphetamine science, strategy and response, Prague, 15-16 September 2008