HEALTH CANADA TARGETS LEGAL CLUB DRUG

BZP Found To Pose A Risk

Health Canada is taking steps to all but ban a new, hallucinogenic
party drug that it says is becoming increasingly popular, has
potentially dangerous side effects and is essentially
unregulated.

The department is proposing to declare BZP and other members of the
piperazine class controlled substances, making possession and
trafficking in the drugs a crime except for purposes authorized by the
government. The move, announced in a notice published on Saturday,
would effectively end the pills' current street status as the "legal
ecstasy."

"These substances are increasingly being used recreationally for their
stimulant and hallucinogenic properties," the regulator said in a
statement. "Health Canada is ... concerned that these substances pose
a risk to the health and safety of Canadians."

BZP offers users feelings of euphoria, alertness and energy, as well
as hallucinations in larger doses. Reported side effects include
appetite loss, nausea, moodiness, elevated blood pressure and rapid
heart rate.

One Toronto-based distributor of BZP -- sold in pill form with benign
names such as Peaq, Freq and Spun -- argued yesterday that he is
offering a safe alternative to ecstasy and other, more potent
substances such as methamphetamine, or crystal meth. Making
piperazines illegal will only force their use underground, and push
people to dabble in riskier drugs, said Adam Wookey, owner of Purepillz.

In fact, when Health Canada first issued a warning in July about
piperazines, many retailers stopped selling the pills, said Mr.
Wookey. His company, which distributes the drugs to stores and sells
them online, was flooded with calls and e-mails from people who said
they would revert to using alternatives like crystal meth if they
could not get a supply of BZP.

"Why is it we have products like alcohol and tobacco that kill people
regularly that are legal, and here we have a product that doesn't kill
people ... and we're so quick to run and ban it?"

Piperazines have surprising origins. They were originally developed as
de-worming medicine for livestock, though research in the 1970s found
some benefits as human anti-depressants.

They came to the fore as recreational drugs in New Zealand, where an
estimated 20 million have been sold legally in the past six years. For
three years, they were regulated essentially as a tobacco-like
product, with sales prohibited to anyone under 18, a ban on
advertising, and health warnings required on packages. But then in
April, amid increased concerns about the pills' safety, New Zealand
effectively banned the drugs' recreational use.

The New Zealand Drug Foundation says they do not appear to be
physically addictive, but describes a list of "very unpleasant" side
effects.

One of the first controlled clinical trials of the drug, released
earlier this year, compared BZP to alcohol and a combination of
alcohol and BZP. The small-scale New Zealand study was stopped early
because of concern about adverse reactions among those taking just BZP
or the pills plus alcohol.

"We conclude that party pills commonly cause severe adverse reactions
and have marked cardiovascular effects," the study by the Medical
Institute of New Zealand concluded.

The Health Canada notice cites another New Zealand study that recorded
61 emergency-room admissions for BZP side effects at one hospital over
five months.

Most were mild to moderate but two patients suffered life-threatening
toxicity, the regulator says. There have been two deaths recorded
elsewhere in the world, though both involved a combination of BZP and
other substances.

The drug was suspected of playing a role in the July death of a
Toronto man at a city nightclub, as he had reportedly taken BZP before
collapsing, but the 55-year-old also had a heart condition and no
proof of a link to the pills has emerged.

BZP seems to have similar effects --both desired and negative--as
ecstasy, though there is little scientific data available on the
substance, said Wende Wood, a psychiatric pharmacist at Toronto's
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She questioned claims they are
a safer alternative to ecstasy, but also said an outright ban might
not achieve much.

"When you prohibit, it does not necessarily stop use," said Ms.
Wood.

Meanwhile, Health Canada says it has seen a "steady increase" in the
number of shipments of large quantities of both piperazine pills and
bulk powder coming into the country.

Sgt. Brent Hill, a Toronto-area RCMP officer, confirmed that police
are seeing more and more of the substance. It seems to be part of the
growing popularity of synthetic chemical drugs, such as Ecstasy and
methamphetamines, he said.

"You've got a pill-popping generation," he said. "You look at these
pills and they're clean, they have nice pictures on them, stamps,
different col-ours. It doesn't look harmful. Ignorance is bliss."

Purepillz has a store in dowtown Toronto, where a National Post
photographer bought some of the pills yesterday. He was advised not to
take them with "real" drugs or alcohol and to avoid them if he had a
heart condition. After finding out later that his customer was a
journalist, the clerk added that he would not normally have sold the
drug without having him first fill out the proper "documents."

Health Canada says it is accepting input on its proposal for the next
30 days, before drafting a tentative new regulation and inviting more
feedback. It says it does not want to ban legitimate industrial and
medicinal uses of the drugs.