PILLERS OF THE COMMUNITY NO TONIC

The oddly named "Social Tonics Association", whose members import and
sell "party pills", says that if the pills are banned, "tens of
thousands of New Zealanders" will turn to dangerous drugs.

It is a hysterical response by threatened vested interest. Should we
really be expected to take seriously the self-serving line that pill
sellers are fulfilling a vital social need?

The days are numbered for party pills, said to be taken by a fifth of
New Zealand's population. About 26 million pills have been sold here
since 2000 and it is a multi million-dollar industry. They contain
benzylpiperazine and other common ingredients and emulate the effects
of Ecstasy.

Concerns that New Zealand has become a haven for mind-altering drugs
has prompted calls from an expert drugs advisory committee for the
pills to be banned.

The call followed a study aborted by the Medical Research Institute
because of the drugs' unpleasant side effects on patients. The
committee recommends that BZP pills are placed in the same category as
cannabis under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

While users and sellers claim the pills are harmless, there is clear
evidence they are not and that their toxicity is underplayed.

Inevitably, legislators are painted as party-poopers, though there is
some strength to the argument that prohibition places a premium on
banned substances that makes their distribution and sale irresistible
to criminals. Plus, the uncomfortable paradox that alcohol and
tobacco, legally available but capable of infinitely more harm when
abused, will remain unaddressed.

However, it is a disingenuous and manipulative for the Social Tonics
Association spokesman Matt Bowden to claim there "is clear evidence
party pills are keeping people away from methamphetamine". Such
extravagant nonsense invalidates any advocacy for party pills.

Are we to believe that the demand for, and supply of, P is so
widespread and New Zealanders are so indifferent to (or ignorant
about) its dreadful effects that banning a weaker alternative will
induce them to take pure methamphetamine? The association's argument
assumes there is a need for psychoactive drugs that has to be met. How
much is that need one that they have created? The reality is more
likely that when party pills are so widely advertised and made readily
available, as well as being legal, they attract anyone keen to give it
a go.