Alcohol Healthwatch has joined the National Addiction Centre in calling for the sale of alcohol powder sachets to be banned or tightly regulated.
The alcohol sachets cost about $1.50 and have the strength of 0.4 of a standard drink.
Seven fans getting into it. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson
They also contain 20 percent alcohol, and can be mixed with non-alcoholic drinks.
Director of Alcohol Healthwatch, Rebecca Williams, said they were not quality drinks but give people a quick hit.
She said they were predominantly used by young people trying to smuggle alcohol into restricted areas at sports and music events.
Doug Selman head of the National Addiction Centre said
the sachets would take the country backwards.
He said the sachets can be bought in some bottle stores, and are a cunning way for people to bring alcohol into events.
Professor Selman, who is also the medical spokesperson for the lobby group, Alcohol Action New Zealand, said these sachets were simply a clever method of making alcohol more available.
"All the evidence points to the fact that if you make alcohol more accessible, more alcohol will be consumed and if more alcohol is consumed you'll get more alcohol related problems.
"So what we have to do in New Zealand, where alcohol is still relatively out of control, is decrease the accessibility and these sachets are just taking us in the opposite direction by increasing the accessibility of alcohol, but in a rather sneaky and secretive way," he said.
Professor Sellman said the Government currently had no policy on alcohol sachets and he was urging it to look seriously into regulating or banning them.