Police attending seven meth crimes a day

A secret police report which monitors meth-related harm has been leaked to Newshub, showing police are attending seven meth callouts every day - up from five per day in previous years.

The document, which was from November and has not been publicly released, shows in 2015 there were 2473 crime reports filed which mentioned methamphetamine.

When compared to the average of 1972, it shows meth-related crime is on the rise.

By August of 2016 there had already been 2127 "occurrences" involving methamphetamine.

Police Association boss Chris Cahill wants the Government to stay focused on its war on P.

"You can't take your foot off the throat on this one. It is too big of an issue for New Zealand," he told Newshub.

But the responsibility for tackling methamphetamine has been quietly shifted from the Prime Minister to his deputy, and a key indicator for the Government's war on methamphetamine has been scrapped.

Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett said official reports were showing that methamphetamine has dropped.

"In most places actually meth use has dropped, but I see it too much and anecdotally hear it too often from police to accept that that's good enough," she told Newshub.

"I think that we can go further so I think the first stage of that plan has gone well, we can now up the ante and do something different."

But while waiting for a new plan, there's been a surge in meth-related crime. The document shows over a period of two years, three people were murdered by someone who was high on meth and a further seven killed in drug deals gone wrong.

And that's likely on the lower end of the scale - the report says those are only incidents where P was recorded as a factor and it's "unknown" whether methamphetamine was a factor in other homicides.

In August last year meth was recorded as a factor in 65 crimes involving weapons, 32 involving firearms, 43 assaults, 11 domestic violence crimes, and five sexual assaults and sexual kidnappings.

All were increases on the same month in the previous year, with weapons and firearms related crimes almost doubling.

"Whether it's family violence, whether it's burglaries, whether it's serious robberies, it's all being driven by meth and the availability of meth in the community," Mr Cahill said.

Newshub.