The Helen Clark Foundation calls on Government to fund a health-based approach to drugs
Helen Clark Foundation media release: 28 October 2025
New research from The Helen Clark Foundation and the University of Otago shows New Zealanders across the political spectrum want to see a more health-based approach to tackling the country’s drug issues, sending a clear message to leaders that a change in our response to drugs will be supported.
This month marks fifty years since New Zealand passed the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. That law has driven New Zealand’s emphasis on law enforcement in responding to drug use, and remains largely unchanged after five decades, despite clear evidence that it is ineffective.
The Drug Harm Index estimates the cost of illegal drug harm, and shows that illicit drug use in New Zealand causes close to $2 billion of harm each year. The Government spends close to half a billion dollars annually responding to drug use. Drug policy experts agree that there is strong evidence to support greater investment in health-based approaches, such as prevention, harm reduction, and treatment programmes.
“New Zealand’s drug law has had little change for decades. In the face of the growing presence of synthetics in the drug supply offshore and the impacts on our communities when there is insufficient harm reduction, the need to reform how we respond is great,” said Dr Rose Crossin, the report’s author.
“New Zealanders from all backgrounds and political perspectives want to see more funding for drug prevention and harm reduction. This includes those for whom law enforcement remains a priority,” says Dr Crossin.
The Foundation’s report focuses on three key areas:
- where our drug funding is currently being spent,
- how people would prefer to see the funding allocated, and
- whether a ‘deliberative democracy’ process to engage citizens is effective for reaching consensus on sensitive and complex policy challenges such as this.
Find out more about "New Zealand’s choice: Funding our drug policy".
Breaking down New Zealand’s drug budget for the first time across four drug policy areas reveals that 68 per cent of funding goes to law enforcement, 25 per cent to treatment, six per cent on prevention, and just over one per cent on harm reduction. In contrast, the report’s findings show a community preference for almost two-thirds of funding to be allocated to health-based approaches like prevention, harm reduction, and treatment. When a sample of New Zealanders was asked how they wanted tax dollars spent, they allocated 36 per cent to law enforcement, 24 per cent to treatment, 25 percent to prevention, and 16 per cent to harm reduction.
The Foundation’s patron Helen Clark says today’s research suggests that there is an opportunity to achieve cross-party consensus on a more humane, evidence-based, and cost-effective response to drug use in New Zealand.
“Research published by the Foundation suggests that New Zealanders are more likely to support greater emphasis on a health-based approach to drugs than politicians and policymakers may think,” Helen Clark said. “That creates an opportunity for decision-makers to follow the evidence and update drug policy settings knowing that this is likely to be supported by the community. For instance, the methamphetamine harm reduction programme piloted in Northland, Te Ara Oranga, has been evaluated with good results and needs nation-wide roll out."
Today’s report makes four recommendations to the Government to improve drug policy in New Zealand. These recommendations acknowledge that prevention, harm reduction, and treatment all require additional funding, but that both prevention and harm reduction would also benefit from an integrated and systems-level approach.
Key recommendations
- Immediately increase funding for prevention, treatment, and harm reduction in New Zealand, in line with stated community preferences.
- Develop, implement, and comprehensively fund an evidence-based drug prevention programme for New Zealand.
- Develop, implement, and comprehensively fund an evidence-based harm reduction programme for New Zealand.
- Hold a Citizens’ Assembly on the issue of illegal drugs within the next two years. The Citizens’ Assembly should be given a broad mandate to consider drug laws, policies, and funding allocations at a systems level.