Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Paddy Gower Exposes the Illegal Peptide Boom in New Zealand

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

How easy is it to buy an illegal peptide drug in New Zealand? Paddy Gower shares what happened when he ordered unapproved weight-loss medication directly from China through an Instagram ad. The conversation explores the booming peptide market, customs challenges, health risks, and why experts believe these drugs are about to become even more popular.   Join the Itty Bitty Hitty Committee HERE!Instagram:  @THEHITSBREAKFASTFacebook: The Hits Breakfast with Jono, Ben & MeganSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Night on three and three now, Pat Agar has issues returns, and he's joining us in the studio right now. We're probably adding to his issues. No, you're definitely not. Just a little bit of news reading. Made you come and contribute to our phonotopic read news and now we're going to interview you. Apart from the big stuff on the show, what's one personal issue that you've got going on? Forgetting a password, you know, gym membership, lapsing, anything like that going on in your personal life? Oh, mate, don't talk about passwords.

You know, like, you're trying to get in and out of my social media. and then obviously the office ID do you lock in the old face ID? Well who can actually use all of their passwords for their socials and stuff like that. You change it all the time. And internet banking, you know. That's a huge issue. That's an issue. That's an issue.

Massive. A big issue you got at the moment is in your hand right now, you have something that's illegal that you've purchased offshore and smuggled into the country. Yeah. What I'm holding here actually with you, John, I'm with you, Ben, is they are illegal drugs. I've smuggled these into the country. I imported these from China. Are we part of this now?

Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, guys. Guilty by association. It's good to spread a problem. Like you'd ask me if I had any issues before. Yeah, I've got some legal ones. So these are peptides. I've heard the name.

To be honest, I don't know much more than just hearing the name a lot lately. Okay, so what they are is they're actually a medicine or an illegal medicine or an unimproved medicine. This is what's called RETA. It's RETA Trutide. the official name. This is a weight loss drug that is said to be more powerful than Wagovi and and the Lhsempic. It's a kind of a next generation drug that hasn't been clinically approved.

But what is happening is that New Zealanders are just ordering this straight from China, mainly through social media, of course. And there's not just weight loss peptides that people can get. There's one for tanning. There's one for a skin glow up. There's one to remove acne. There's one to improve your injuries, which is very, very popular in this country at the moment, something called the Wolverine stack because of its regenerative nature. That's my mate's on that one. A lot of people battling injuries will be on Wolverine. It helps your recovery.

So it's very popular with people with sore backs or sore knees in this country who are looking for answers. But obviously risky if they haven't been sort of passed by the medical association. Yeah, that's right. So this MedSafe, which is our medicines regulator, has declared them illegal. You know, they haven't been through all of those clinical tests that people will be familiar with where you've got to test them on animals and test them on humans and test them on humans again and then eventually you've released the drug into the market that skipped all that. But, you know, to get these, I got them by going through an ad on Instagram and then I started

talking to a woman in China on WhatsApp who showed me photos of her lab. I then ordered them and these were through the New Zealand border through our customs within five days. Why are they not getting stopped by customs? It's pretty hard to stop stuff like this coming through customs as people will be aware

it's very hard to stop methamphetamine and the big illegal drugs coming in this country if you've got lots and lots of New Zealanders and I can tell you right now they are stopping thousands of these vials at the border right now thousands of thousands of these vials at the border right now but they are just seeping through because so many people are ordering them. People aren't treating them like an illegal drug.

People are treating them like a medicine and are just ordering them. And they're so new that no one has actually been caught or punished yet, don't really know what to do. And it's hardly like your mate with a sore back is a master criminal who needs to be hung, drawn, and quartered and locked up inside. He just wanted some pain relief. He just wanted some pain relief. So the authorities have got a very, very complex problem on their hands tonight.

And when you watch Patty Gower has issues at 7.30 on 3 tonight, or it's going to be on 3 now later today, you'll see, I speak to one woman who swears bipeptides, a personal trainer who's used to recover from a difficult injury. And we also speak to another young lady, 20, 21 years of age, who has body image issues and crashed her weight by about 14KGs in just three months on this stuff that I'm holding in my hand, Rita Trutide or Retta. A lot of your listeners will have heard of it, and if you haven't heard it by now,

you'll hear about it now or soon. These are going to be, mark my words, these will be absolutely massive in New Zealand. The tanning one sounds interesting to me. I'm a very pasty white man. I can do it with a little glower. Give me a couple of those pepies, ma'all. Chuck him in my coffee.

So 7.30 tonight, I'm three. And three and three now, Patiga. You can't put them in your coffee. That was the one thing I had to say. People are injecting these themselves. Oh, wow. So you have to get the needles, mix them themselves, and then inject yourself with them. So I can't just slip it in your coffee.

Hold on a legalities around that. But not about bringing them into the studio. Old fun sponge gower over here, right? All right is a tan, mate. Oh, sounds very fascinating. Catch the new series tonight on 3 and 3 now.