Editorial: Pill-popping law should do the trick

By any measure the party-pill business is one of New Zealand's boom industries. In the past five years five to six million have been sold and we are now consuming them at a rate of 200,000 every month. The numbers are emphatic testimony to society's large and growing appetite for mind-altering substances.


The key ingredient of these pills is benzylpiperazine, or BZP for short, which is a synthetic substance and from all accounts owes its popularity to the fact that it mimics the energising effects of some of the most notorious drugs on the illegal market such as Ecstasy, speed and P.

Side-effects have been reported including heart palpitations, increased temperature and blood pressure, agitation, vomiting, seizures, abdominal pain, hallucinations and convulsions. Not surprisingly there have been calls for a ban from those who inevitably have to pick up the pieces - the medical profession and the police.

The parliamentary committee on health has responded to such concerns by proposing not to ban the pills but to regulate them and restrict sale to people over 18. For some people, alarmed by shocking stories of the pills' bad effects, this might seem a weak response to what is, potentially, a large social problem. But there are reasons to suggest that an outright ban would do more harm than good.

Certainly that is the line taken by leaders of the $24 million party-pill industry, who have formed themselves into the euphemistically named Social Tonics Association of New Zealand. First, they claim that the harmful effects of party pills are greatly exaggerated and if they are used as directed there should be no problems. The point is backed up by evidence that, despite the enormous number of pills popped, only a small number of pill-poppers end up in casualty wards, a much smaller proportion than for that other well-known legal drug, alcohol.

Second, they argue that legal party pills provide a beneficial effect by weaning people off, or keeping them away from, the more dangerous, and illegal, alternatives. Third, they point out that a ban will only make the drug problem worse by driving party pills underground.

Of these three arguments only the third holds water. The first two are undermined by clear evidence that - despite the association's best efforts - these easily available pills are of uneven quality and are often contaminated * with other substances, including illegal drugs such as Ecstasy and methamphetamines. Without proper quality control it is impossible to accept either that the pills are harmless or that they save people from harder drugs. On the contrary, the reverse of those two propositions is more likely to be true.

But the third argument is of an altogether different quality. It raises the age-old moral and legal dilemma associated with banning substances that are in popular demand. To ban may be the most desirable course in principle but in practice it will just force the pill trade underground with the rest of the illicit drug trade. Thus it will become more dangerous and much harder to control.

The Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill is the most sensible way to navigate through the dilemma. Although it stops well short of the ban that some people desire, it should put the industry on a tightly regulated footing, controlling not only what substances go into party pills but who can buy them and how they are advertised.

Already there have been mutterings from some in the industry about how regulation might affect business. Rather than trying to quibble they should devote their energies to making sure this long-overdue regulation works to the benefit of their customers and society at large. And in doing so, they should count themselves lucky they have not been driven out of business altogether.


* CLARIFICATION: This is an erroneous interpretation of a report that said there was an emerging trend to mix illicit drugs with legal substances, such as BZP, which are also found in party pills.