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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Kiwis protest looming party pill ban [NZ]
    #6646699 - 03/07/07 08:05 PM (17 years, 25 days ago)

March 6, 2007 - Scientific American
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 Center, 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 tablet and NZ$100 for 100mg of methamphetamine -- price and legality are their main attractions, Wilkins said.

But while keeping the pills legal may keep partygoers happy, it could be a far weightier decision than banning them.

"We have to decide, do we want a legal market in recreational drugs, apart from tobacco and alcohol? It would require quite a bit of political risk-taking, on the chance that the pills have some benefits," Wilkins said.

"You'd make that decision, and then someone would die -- and you'd be left carrying the can."

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OfflineRoker
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Re: Kiwis protest looming party pill ban [NZ] [Re: veggie]
    #6647720 - 03/08/07 02:44 AM (17 years, 25 days ago)

A friend of mine has tried these and he said "Never again! I couldn't sleep for two days and had the worst hangover of my life, and the buzz is not that great, give me eccy's any day. If they ban them I don't give a shit."

personally I think they should ban things in order of their toxicity and attendant fatalities. Cigarettes, Alcohol etc down the line to heroin, lsd, and mushies right down the bottom next to donuts.


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Kiwis protest looming party pill ban [NZ] [Re: Roker]
    #6647827 - 03/08/07 05:22 AM (17 years, 25 days ago)

> personally I think they should ban things in order of their toxicity and attendant fatalities.

Personally, I don't think they should ban any drug at all for any reason. Instead, the law should require all products to list safety information so that the public can make intelligent and informed decisions about what they put into their body.


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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OfflineSebastian23
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Re: Kiwis protest looming party pill ban [NZ] [Re: Seuss]
    #6651005 - 03/08/07 10:00 PM (17 years, 24 days ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> personally I think they should ban things in order of their toxicity and attendant fatalities.

Personally, I don't think they should ban any drug at all for any reason. Instead, the law should require all products to list safety information so that the public can make intelligent and informed decisions about what they put into their body.




And UNBIASED drug education in schools. Not drug propagandization, education.


--------------------
"If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment
with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp
it was written on."
-Terence McKenna
Marijuana Myths Debunked

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Offlinebiggysmall
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Re: Kiwis protest looming party pill ban [NZ] [Re: veggie]
    #6840227 - 04/27/07 08:26 AM (16 years, 10 months ago)

am i the only one who noticed this.. but it said the price for XTC was 60-80.... am i retarted or is something not rite about that statement.. or maby both

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Invisiblepoke smot!
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Re: Kiwis protest looming party pill ban [NZ] *DELETED* [Re: biggysmall]
    #6840980 - 04/27/07 11:48 AM (16 years, 10 months ago)

Post deleted by poke smot!

Reason for deletion: x


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Offlinebiggysmall
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Re: Kiwis protest looming party pill ban [NZ] [Re: poke smot!]
    #6843515 - 04/27/07 11:34 PM (16 years, 10 months ago)

o my bad..... now much is that worth anyone know?

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Offlinetools_n_corpses
why did i choosethis name
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Re: Kiwis protest looming party pill ban [NZ] [Re: biggysmall]
    #6854828 - 04/30/07 06:27 PM (16 years, 10 months ago)

NZ$60 = US$44 = AU$53

Pretty awful prices. I guess it's obvious that the smaller the country is, the lower the competition/availability is within it, and so the dealers jack up the prices to whatever they want.


--------------------
"Misery only doth exist, none miserable,

No doer is there; naught save the deed is found.

Nirvana is, but not the man who seeks it.

The Path exists, but not the traveler on it.
"

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Offlinebiggysmall
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Re: Kiwis protest looming party pill ban [NZ] [Re: tools_n_corpses]
    #6856420 - 05/01/07 12:41 AM (16 years, 10 months ago)

damn i can get E for 2 dollars canadian..... thats insane...

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