PILLS AND SPILLS

Party Pills Pose Two Problems, Writes The Southland Times In An Editorial.

We still cannot be entirely sure of their effects on the user but we can be
sure that their users are intemperate young recreationists who are hardly
proving scrupulous in obeying the manufacturers' instructions.

Though the pills are legally sold the Government, last year, introduced
some constraints, notably an R18 age limit. Clinical research trials,
though still under way, have not to date provided a compelling case for
banning them outright.

However, as accident and emergency departments around the country can
attest, party pills are wreaking damage when taken in excess or combined
with alcohol.

Given the abandon with which the pill-poppers are so often taking them, it
is now a significant question whether the problem is really the abuse, or
merely the use, of the product.

Against this testy background, it is a serious matter that tests
commissioned by Radio New Zealand on four of the "legal high" pills have
shown all had higher levels of the active ingredient, benzylpiperazine,
than was shown on the labels. One brand contained 26mg more than the
identified 500mg, and in any case recommended a dose of two tablets. The
Social Tonics Association - a too, too cute name for the producers and
retailers of most of the pills - says it is unsafe to take more than 200mg
of BZP, and is itself calling for tighter regulation around manufacturing
standards.

National's Otago MP Jacqui Dean is petitioning for a reclassification that
would provide considerably tighter controls, restricting the dose of each
pill, and banning them from sale in liquor stores and some other stores,
like clothing shops.

Those who defend the pills make much of the fact that where people have
been harmed they have invariably disregarded the labelled warnings that
typically concern the possibility of heart palpitations, rising blood
pressured increased body temperature.

Not a healthful concoction, to be sure, though not as hideous as the
warnings on cigarette packs.

Control, rather than criminalisation, appears to be the best option and is
effectively the approach taken by the Government's Expert Advisory
Committee on Drugs.

It is an issue where pragmatism, rather than either conservative or liberal
idealism, must hold sway.

Party pills have been described as a preferable alternative to potentially
more dangerous, and illicit, stimulants. This is true enough, in itself,
but they are also potentially an early step down that path for their young
consumers.

Older generations might as well admit that in their callow youth they
weren't averse to forays into the potentially dangerous world of artificial
stimulation, and each generation tends to prefer its own alternatives.
After all, it's a tad hypocritical for some of those who chuckle their way
through the Hokonui Moonshine Museum to pucker up too hard at the notion of
young people taking party pills.

The pills need to be closely monitored and controlled, but let's not get
too agitated. That's counterproductive, in any case.

There's nothing like a hearty chorus of adult disapproval to lend spurious
glamour to an indulgence that might otherwise be found out quickly enough.