Risk-taking kiwis protest looming "party pill" ban

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Skiing down active volcanoes is perfectly alright, so is bungy-jumping off canyons and "zorbing" down mountains in massive inflatable plastic balls.

But should risk-taking New Zealanders be allowed to pop the legal stimulants they call "party pills"?
Frenzy, Torque and D-lite may not be New Zealand's best-known inventions, but kiwi fans fighting a proposed government ban argue their legal highs are safer than many of the small country's dangerous pastimes.

"There have been 26 million party pills consumed and zero deaths," says Aucklander Matt Bowden, 36, who started the national craze that has grown into a NZ$25 (US$17) million industry over the last six years.

Bowden, chair of party pills industry body the Social Tonics Association of New Zealand (STANZ), has argued many sports should be banned before the pills are if the country is to be consistent about evaluating risk.

"You're more likely to die in a 747, or driving to work in Auckland traffic," he said.

CATTLE DRENCH
Initially synthesised by Bowden and a neuropharmacologist in 2000 to help friends break their addictions to methamphetamine, the synthetic benzylpiperazine (BZP)-based party pills have taken the country of four million by storm.

Costing $40 for a pack of four, the pills are sold everywhere from service stations and hairdressers to 24-hour party pill boutiques, and even that iconic institution of laid-back New Zealand life, the corner "dairy" or convenience store.

But BZP's unlikely pedigree -- created as a cattle drench in 1944 to kill bowel parasites in cattle -- means little was known about its effects on humans when it burst onto the social scene.
"I sometimes think the people selling them should have a sign: 'Come and queue up for your cattle drench here'," says Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton, who will report on whether the pills should be banned later this month.

Despite opposition calls for a ban, Anderton said he will not follow the example of Australia, Denmark and the United States and issue a knee-jerk prohibition before accurate information is gathered.

"I don't just turn up on a Monday morning and write down on the back of an envelope how many things I want to ban. There's a process. We have an evidence-based drug policy," he told Reuters.

RISKY BUSINESS
The runaway popularity of the pills, which affect the brain's dopamine and noradrenaline neurotransmitter systems to give an ecstasy-like high, has seen the government race to catch-up.
A June 2005 reclassification of BZP as a restricted substance prevents their sale to under-18s and restricted advertising. But it does not seem to have slowed demand for the otherwise unregulated pills.

A 2006 National Household Survey found one in five kiwis between 15 and 45 have used party pills, making them as popular as the number one illegal drug, cannabis, also used by 20 percent of the population last year.

The pills' swift, and surprising, rise from obscurity has put the government in an unusually tricky position, Anderton said.

"Normally drug makers have to prove that it is safe. Why do we have to prove it's unsafe? The onus has been reversed. It's amazing that we've got to come up with evidence that they're safe or not," he said.

Meanwhile, the National Household Survey reported that BZP levels have soared from 30-40 mg per pill to around 200 mg. And other drug experts worry that the lack of regulation means unidentified chemicals can easily creep into the pills.

"They'll put down the dose of BZP but not always other piperazines like TFMPP (Trifluoromethylphenylpiperazine,) on the label. Sometimes they just put "piperazine-blend" which is completely meaningless," said Mairead Harnett of the National Poisons Centre, who led a BZP toxicity study last year.

Harnett, whose 24-hour hotline fielded 400 calls from doctors and party pill takers over the last four years, says there is enough evidence for BZP to be reclassified as an illegal, class C, drug, because of its amphetamine-like effects.

If the government draws the same conclusion, the pills could be banned within six months. Until then, a lack of hard and fast information keeps them on shelves.
"I regard them the same as cigarettes, not particularly nice, not really good for people, but they're legal," said one central Wellington convenience store owner, who declined to be named. "I'll sell them while they're legal".

LEGAL APPEAL
Despite the risks pill-poppers are taking, some drug experts worry a BZP ban might push kiwis back to illicit drugs.

"I think users would stop using BZP and go back to cannabis, methamphetamine and ecstasy, because pharmacologically, they are better drugs than BZP," said Chris Wilkins, who led the 2006 National Household Survey of Legal Party Pill Use.

At NZ$10 per party pill -- compared to NZ$60-$80 for an ecstasy tab

Source: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=365012007