DRUG BAN WILL FUEL GANG BLACK MARKET - WARNING

The banning of BZP party pills was "a sham" based on unreliable
research and will feed a black market headed by drug-running gangs, a
criminal law professor says.

In an article in the New Zealand Law Journal - titled The Great BZP
Hoax - Otago University professor Kevin Dawkins accuses the Government
of rushing through legislation to ban BZP, ignoring regulatory
measures that could have curbed rampant use of the drug.

He calls the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Act,
passed on April 1, "legislative folly" and writes that the BZP ban
will push the drug underground and expose users to other drugs such as
P and ecstasy.

"Since prohibition cannot repeal the law of supply and demand, those
who prefer to continue using BZP will be forced into the black market
and the arms of the gangs," he says.

Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton - who dismissed Professor
Dawkins' article as "careless" - pushed through the BZP ban after a
recommendation from an expert advisory committee on drugs. The
research showed the pills caused migraines, hallucinations, vomiting,
confusion, seizures and insomnia.

The ban came after regulatory measures were considered, including
restrictions on dosages, labelling, points of sale, and
advertising.

Professor Dawkins said those regulations were simply "a stalking
horse" for prohibition.

"Not to have implemented the regulatory regime for BZP is a gross
deception in itself," he writes in the Law Journal. "But to have
jettisoned regulation in favour of prohibition aggravates the hoax."

He attacks the research used to support the ban, saying it was based
on "unpublished, unreplicated and unreliable research, potentially
compromised by conflicts of interest".

Mr Anderton said the BZP ban was implemented after "carefully weighing
all the evidence I could".

He said Professsor Dawkins had a "long record" of advocating drug law
liberalisation.

"The evidence told me very clearly that the drug had enough potential
to cause harm that it could be banned," he said.

Mr Anderton said there was little evidence that banning BZP had turned
users toward harder drugs.

Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell said he had questions
about "the quality of some of the research" used to support a ban but
that Mr Anderton "played a pretty straight bat" over party pills.

"I think [Professor Dawkins] is trying to find a conspiracy where
there isn't one. I agree with him that there were a number of
regulations put in place and they weren't enforced, and I think that's
a real shame. But I disagree with his conclusion that there was a
direct attempt by the minister to get his way."