Kiwis are smoking less and snorting more than in the past, new data has revealed.

Cocaine availability and use is rising, while vapers outnumber smokers of traditional cigarettes for the first time in the latest annual New Zealand Drug Trends Survey (NZDTS).

Massey University has been asking thousands of New Zealanders about their drug habits annually since 2017.

Lead researcher Professor Chris Wilkins says the latest survey has found increased availability of cocaine, particularly in Auckland, Northland and Bay of Plenty, and increased cocaine use across the whole country.

Their anecdotal evidence was reflected in wastewater drug testing and police seizures.

Wilkins said cocaine was one of the few drugs in the survey whose price had not dropped.

Cannabis was the most widely used illegal drug, with seven in 10 respondents having consumed it in the previous six months. Second was MDMA (ecstasy, 45 percent), LSD/psychedelics (45 percent), cocaine (23 percent, up from 12 percent), ketamine (19 percent) and nitrous oxide (18 percent).

All were well behind alcohol use, at 86 percent.

Use of vaping products leapt from 48 percent in the previous survey to 64 percent, ahead of tobacco, which fell from 58 to 50 percent.

Meth was most popular in Manawatū-Whanganui, Waikato and Northland, while MDMA and ketamine use were highest in Otago, Wellington and Canterbury. Cocaine use increased in all regions, but was particularly available in Auckland, Northland, Waikato, Taranaki and the Bay of Plenty.

"You have seen coke production increase kind of year on year since around 2018, 2019, so it sort of suggests that they are looking to expand," Massey University researcher Robin van der Sanden told Morning Report.

"There's a lot of coke floating around, so they are perhaps more inclined to serve small, kind of peripheral markets, like New Zealand."

LSD and other psychedelics were getting cheaper, the NZDTS found, "perhaps reflecting new digital supply sources including social media and darknets, and interest in therapeutic use". as well as loosening restrictions in the United States and Australia.

"We've seen an increase in availability and some decline in price, but I think that's really been driven by curiosity and just popularity of psychedelics on the back of that kind of wave of interest in the therapeutic benefits," van der Sanden said.

Restricted availability due to supply constrictions and concerns over the size and potency of MDMA pills appears to have stunted its growth in New Zealand.

High on their own supply

Cannabis availability is getting higher, the survey found, and prices have "marginally declined", as more people grow their own at home.

"Think about how prices in the legal economy have gone since 2017, and costs all gone up by five, 10, 15 percent - whereas these illegal market drugs have actually declined in the regions of, you know, anything from 10 to 35 percent."

The 2024 survey was conducted between February and July, and spoke to 10,781 users "with recent experience and knowledge of drug use and drug markets across the country", which "broadly [represented] the demographic profile and regional population distribution", though skewed slightly younger than New Zealand as a whole.

- RNZ