RENEWED CALLS TO BAN PARTY PILLS

Doctors are renewing calls for party pills to be banned because a
17-year-old suffered complete kidney failure after taking five herbal highs.

The legal pills have been variously linked to seizures, paranoia, and
abnormal heart rhythms, but this was believed to be the first report
of a user suffering kidney failure.

The case, reported in the latest New Zealand Medical Journal,
involved a young man who was rushed to hospital in extreme pain 36
hours after taking five herbal highs while partying in Tauranga. He
was transferred to Waikato Hospital after it was realised he had
suffered kidney failure. He was put on dialysis once before making a
full recovery.

Waikato renal registrar Mohammed Alansari said the benzylpiperazine
(BZP) pills were the only thing in the teenager's history that could
have caused his collapse. "That was the only new thing and the only
reason for his renal failure."

The youth had never taken party pills before.

BZP, first made in 1944, was intended as an antiparasitic. It not
only caused serious side-effects but it proved ineffective. Alansari
said the drug, which mimicked the effects of speed, began to be used
recreationally in the United States and Europe in the 1990s. It was
now outlawed in both places and in some states of Australia.

Alansari said he would also like to see it banned in New Zealand.

Despite his patient's horrific experiences, Alansari believed he
would take party pills again.

Christchurch Hospital emergency medicine specialist Dr Paul Gee said
he was not surprised by the latest case. "What does surprise me is
that the industry keeps saying it's safe when there is no basis for
that claim."

Gee, who has repeatedly called for the pills to be banned, said
Christchurch's emergency department (ED) saw three to four teenagers
a week who had taken party pills and were suffering side-effects
ranging from panic attacks to hallucinations, vomiting and seizures.
Repeat users often took increasingly higher doses to get an effect.

Last month, Waikato Hospital emergency physician Tonia Nicholson
reported that up to 30 per cent of ED patients aged 14 to 25 had
taken party pills. People were at risk of poisoning from the pills
because many did not read instructions, took more than recommended
and drank alcohol at the same time.

Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell said no conclusions
could be drawn from a single case study. "Drug policy needs to be
based on evidence and I'm not convinced this paper adds much to the evidence."

He was awaiting the findings of three studies commissioned by the
Government into party pills.

Association Health Minister Jim Anderton has previously said he would
like to see the pills banned, but the Government would not make a
decision until after seeing the findings from the three research
projects into BZP.

Last year, the Government created a Class D classification for
BZP-based pills and restricted their sale to people aged over 18s.