Forum OpenACS Development: Creating a new user. Alternative to ad_user_new ?

I have tracked down an error being caused (partly) from the fact that creating users takes around 5 seconds. The proc doing that is the ad_user_new: https://openacs.org/api-doc/proc-view?proc=ad%5fuser%5fnew

(which is being used by auth::create_local_account, which is in turn used by auth::create_user , which are both not depricated)

I see though that ad_user_new it is deprecated. Is there an alternative for it?
Or is there a way to reduce the time it takes to create a user?