From Zero: How Did We Get Here?

In the first episode of a new seven-part RNZ podcast series about drugs, Russell Brown looks at the New Zealand drug story through the decades.

Radula marginata, the New Zealand liverwort. Eat enough and you'll fail a workplace drug test. But you probably shouldn't. [Pic credit: User projectzero, The Shroomery]

Heroin in a bottle. It was recommended for children in the 19th century.

Chlorodyne, "admitted by the Profession to be the most wonderful and valuable remedy ever discovered", contained morphine, cannabis and chloroform. [Pic credit: Advertisement for J Collis Browne's Chlorodyne, 1891. Scanned from Ward & Lock's Illustrated Guide to Glasgow and the Clyde.]

Most drug slang is a lot older than you think. This list was published by the Auckland Star on May 28, 1938.

More drug slang.

Eric Mareo, the man at the centre of New Zealand's first celebrity drug scandal in 1935. [Pic credit: New Zealand Herald, 18 June 1936.]

Anna Hoffman, the Auckland "it girl" whose 1959 arrest for selling marijuana to an undercover cop caused a sensation – back in the 1950s (hoffman2.png) and in remembering it all in David Herkt's 2005 documentary High Times: the New Zealand Drug Experience. (hoffman1.png)

Anna Hoffman at the height of her infamy.

There are many surprising things about New Zealand's history with drugs – and the first is how it all began. Which is... From Zero.

Historians generally agree that pre-contact Māori were one of the few societies with no use for intoxicants. Which isn't to say there were none handy. The New Zealand liverwort is one of the few plants apart from cannabis to contain cannabinoids, but there’s no real evidence it was traditionally used. Other plants with psychoactive properties may have been used as rongoā, or traditional medicines - but not to get high.

Heroin available for commercial sale. Photo: Creative Commons

The colonists, on the other hand, had all the drugs – and often in the same bottle. Patent medicines containing opium, morphine, cannabis and cocaine were widely available into the 20th century. They set New Zealand on the way to the present day, when our use of some illicit drugs is amongst the highest in the world.

Historian Redmer Yska and documentarian David Herkt talk Russell through New Zealand's first celebrity drug scandal, in the 1930s, and the profound loss of innocence that came with the huge Mr Asia drug syndicate in the 1970s. And let's not forget the 1950s, when proper society considered itself drug-free but amphetamines were in many bathroom cabinets and doctors could prescribe cannabis for your migraine.

Future episodes of From Zero will look more closely at cannabis, methamphetamine and other drugs. But for now, sit back and enjoy Aotearoa's hidden history of getting high.

Note: the text in this page has been altered to correct a statement that liverwort was part of traditional rongoā practice. Although this is sometimes claimed, there is no reliable evidence for its use.

FROM ZERO – pass it around.

This story was produced by Russell Brown with additional audio from Nga Taonga Sound and Vision and the documentary High Times: The New Zealand Drug Experience by David Herkt.

You can subscribe or listen to every FROM ZERO episode at rnz.co.nz/series and on ITunes and Spotify.