FUMBLING TOWARDS ECSTASY

Highs, lows and legal E

I received the news with mixed feelings and many questions.

Legal 'ecstasy' now being sold in the Village and at Fantasy Factory
locations across the Lower Mainland to anyone over 18. What to make of
it?

They're called Pure Pillz and they're being marketed as a "safer legal
alternative to dangerous street drugs."

They come in four varieties and are attached to different adjectives:
speedy, euphoric, sensual and psychedelic, all meant to emulate the
experiences people have with meth, speed, ecstasy and mushrooms.

The simple fact of their easy availability - legal and over the
counter - opens up so many discussions at once. Especially in our
community where, legal or not, meth, poppers, coke, pot and ecstasy
are common facts of life.

Pure Pillz are legal because their two active ingredients,
benzylpiperazine (BZP) and 3-Trifluoromethylphenylpiperazine (TFMPP),
are legal. Though they have a combined effect similar to MDMA and
amphetamines, BZP and TFMPP are not yet themselves illegal in Canada.

(You may notice some other differences between Pure Pillz and MDMA: a
longer arc of the high, six-to-eight hours, and a lack of some of the
empathogenic effects. They're also, some research suggests, less addictive.)

Still the pillz seem to be available through a legal loophole - one
nobody has yet thought to seal - and are by no means regulated.

So what to make of these pillz? Are they a great, and potentially
safer, opportunity for people interested in trying ecstasy but wary of
buying street drugs to try a little legal E? The fixed dosages listed
on the package certainly offer consumers the possibility of knowing
what they're taking every time. Let's face it, pills purchased on the
street can often be a crapshoot and can be cut with almost anything.

When I told people that this legal E was available over the counter,
not everyone went running to go and try some - though some were
receptive to the idea of knowing they could get a fixed dosage with
more predictable effects each time.

Others say there's a time and a place for party drugs and they're not
interested enough to run out and buy some this very second.

Still others are not interested at all, being simply averse to the
hangovers and emotional consequences of introducing artificial highs
and lows into their lives.

For me, I think one of the best things about the pillz is the
discussion they could open up around all substance use in our lives.

The issues are much larger than me and often glazed over with language
that sometimes denies both the power of the substances we use and the
frailty of our bodies and minds.

I know I wish I had learned a number of these lessons sooner in my
life. I've had to develop my own language around substance use and
navigate my own experiences like everyone else.

Given the frailty of our minds and bodies, it's worth acknowledging
that substance use carries many risks but, safely executed, can also
yield many pleasures. Of course, on the flip side of safe and
responsible partying, is an underbelly of addiction, an issue
especially prevalent here in Vancouver.

The fact is, our days and nights are already saturated in substance
use of all types. Whether it's an office culture fuelled by caffeine
or the social (and sexual) lubricant of alcohol, our bodies are
constantly under some influence. We wear our use of legalized
substances and medicines as affectations to manage our moods.

Personally, I've come to see our bodies as equations. People must
learn for themselves which additions and subtractions yield the
effects they're looking for and what consequences each one carries -
whether we're talking about sugar and nutrition, adrenaline highs from
exercise, or drugs, illegal or illicit, prescribed or
self-medicated.

Working for the last year at an organization that champions harm
reduction, I respect the choices that people make, but try to inform
those decisions where I can.

Without discussion around things like substance use and sexual health,
many youth are left to their own experimentation and peer groups for
their information. Though many keep these issues at arms length,
either through morals or simply their own fear, many others will
successfully obtain drugs - legal, Pure Pillz or otherwise. Can we
really afford as a community not to discuss drug use and people's
individual choices openly?

I never knew it would be like this when I was growing up. I never
thought drugs would be so easily obtainable, over the counter or
otherwise. With marijuana delivered door-to-door and now E over the
counter, I worry about its implications but support the discussion
that this can open up.