AGE 13 AND SHE'S HOOKED ON P

She's just 13 but addicted to P.  Another Bay girl prostitutes herself to pay for the drug.  A young woman cannot cope with work just days after first trying it.

These are just three shocking examples of young people -- some barely in their teens -- who are getting quickly hooked on pure methamphetamine as dealers give away free samples.

A leading drug counsellor has told the Bay of Plenty Times he now believed that two out of every five adolescents in the Western Bay had probably tried or been offered P -- or learned how to get hold of it.

The free "hits" of P are being mixed with battery acid and pushed at parties, supposedly drug-free raves, and on the streets by older teens hooked on the substance themselves.

People can become hooked after using P only four or five times, say agencies battling to deal with the adolescent drug epidemic.

The Drug Arm agency, which has volunteers on the street providing hot food and support to people with drug problems, is dealing every week with teenagers struggling with P dependency.

Manager Kevin Robertson described the drug as "very, very, accessible" to teenagers".

"Drug dealers will sell to anyone," he said.  "They usually approach kids at McDonald's carparks, on the street or at parties and give them a free try.  It seems easy but it only takes a few tries before people get hooked."

Drug Arm volunteers saw at least two teens every weekend who had taken P and it was a myth that only poor or bad kids were vulnerable to getting hooked on the drug, Mr Robertson said.

Children with unstable home environments were more vulnerable but the drug was so easily available now that no-one was immune.

Mr Robertson said many of the drug-affected teenagers Drug Arm helped every weekend were from more affluent suburbs and seemingly good families.

He estimated 40 per cent of teenagers in the Western Bay had either taken, been offered or would know how to get P if they wanted.  Teens were still being found every weekend after taking alcohol and cannabis.

Mr Robertson said parents needed to open their eyes to the threat posed by P.

"Tauranga is a place where things get hidden, like prostitution," he said.  "Just because you don't see hookers walking the streets doesn't mean they aren't there.  P is like that -- it's not always obvious but it definitely is there."

Parents needed to talk to their young teens about P, not assume they were too young to come in contact with it.

Mr Robertson has plenty of anecdotes.

There's the story of a 13-year-old Tauranga girl fighting to beat an addiction to the drug.

Another girl, just 17, is prostituting her body to service a P addiction she developed after just a month's use.

And a 20-year-old woman became addicted to P after being given a sample in a Tauranga bar.

The woman had never taken drugs before but after a week of smoking P threw in her job because she was mentally unable to cope.

She was a "normal" young woman and led an everyday life -- until she got involved with P, Mr Robertson said.

Hathor House drug and alcohol clinical co-ordinator Hester Hattingh agreed that youngsters could become addicted after just a few tries.

The more dire medical effects of taking P are seen by staff at Tauranga's accident and emergency clinic.

Director of emergency medicine Derek Sage said it was almost exclusively young people who were rushed to the emergency unit after taking P.

In the past two years, almost every person admitted to the unit after taking methamphetamine were in their late-teens or early twenties, Dr Sage said.

Last year, seven people were rushed into the emergency department after taking P.  So far this year two people have been admitted.

Dr Sage said these were probably conservative figures as sometimes a person could be classified as having an anxiety disorder on presentation but later turn out to have been affected by P.

One of the most terrifying things about P was its ability to affect people's health months later on an ongoing basis, Dr Sage said.

Many people needing emergency care for drug-taking went to hospital months after taking the drug.

Dr Sage said he had not noticed an increase in the number of teenagers seeking urgent medical attention after taking P since drug dealers had started aggressively targeting this age group.

The jump in P use by Western Bay teens comes less than six months after the Bay of Plenty Times revealed teenagers were being lured to "P parties" where they are given free "starter packs" to get them hooked.

A party pack consisted of a lighter, a pipe for smoking P, and a 0.1g sample of the drug.

But Rotorua-based CIB chief, Detective Inspector Karl Wright St-Clair, believed the number was much lower than Mr Robertson's 40 per cent figure.  He believed the number of children exposed to P was closer to 5 per cent.

He warned parents to keep their children away from the drug as much as possible.