New Zealand's drug enforcement system is splitting in two. While politicians debate national policy, the reality on the ground looks completely different depending on your postcode.

South Auckland drug charges surged 75% in a single year — from 28 people charged in 2023/2024 to 49 in 2024/2025. That's not a typo. That's not a rounding error. That's a complete reversal of trajectory in one region while others barely moved. (Source: Ministry of Justice, drug-offences — 2d.People charged court outcome)

Here's the contrast that should trouble anyone who thinks justice is supposed to be consistent: Auckland Central's drug charges stayed essentially flat. Wellington's numbers didn't spike. Christchurch didn't see anything like this jump. South Auckland did.

Why does this matter? Because 21 additional prosecutions in a single year suggests one of three things is happening. Either drug offending genuinely exploded in South Auckland while staying stable everywhere else. Or police enforcement priorities shifted dramatically toward one community. Or the threshold for charging someone changed in that district.

None of those explanations are comforting.

The first implies a localised drug crisis that somehow bypassed every other urban centre. The second raises questions about equity in policing. The third suggests prosecution decisions are more variable than the public assumes.

This isn't about whether drug laws are too harsh or too lenient. This is about the gap between the national conversation and the regional reality. When cabinet ministers talk about drug policy, they're describing an average that doesn't exist anywhere. South Auckland's experience looks nothing like Dunedin's. A teenager in Manukau faces a completely different justice system than a teenager in Taranaki, even if they're caught with identical substances.

The 75% spike also contradicts the tidy narratives both sides of politics prefer. It's too sharp to be a gradual trend. It's too localised to be a national crisis. It doesn't fit the story of either rising lawlessness or successful deterrence.

What it does fit is a pattern of inconsistency. Drug enforcement in New Zealand has always varied by region, but a jump this steep in one year suggests something changed in how South Auckland prosecutes these cases. Maybe it's a new police operation. Maybe it's a different threshold for referring charges to court. Maybe it's just statistical noise in small numbers.

But 49 charged versus 28 the year before isn't noise. It's a policy choice showing up in the data, whether anyone admits making that choice or not.