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'Party drug' status reviewed

The committee, comprising police, Customs, health and drug experts, advises Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton, who will decide whether to recommend to the Governor-General that a substance be classified.

If he does, the issue goes to Cabinet, a select committee and Parliament.

Today's meeting is also expected to investigate reclassifying amphetamine on the Misuse of Drugs Act schedule that classifies illicit drugs.

A Health Ministry spokeswoman said yesterday committee chairman, Dr Bob Boyd, would not make any media statement on today's deliberations at least until advice had been given to Mr Anderton and the issue discussed.

The "herbal highs" under investigation by the committee are legal central nervous system stimulants that cause an adrenalin-type rush, and their use is reported to be soaring.

The widely-sold pills go by names such as Nemi, Charge, Euphoria, Rapture, Blast, Exodus and Frenzy, with a dose costing about $40.

Some, such as Exodus, are sold with an R18 warning and most warn against mixing with alcohol.

They contain benzylpiperazine and trifluromethylphenylpiperazine, according to Dr Boyd, the chairman of the advisory committee and the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Authority's chief medical adviser.

Pills with these chemicals have been illegal in the United States since 2002 and are illegal in two Australian states.

Five young people were taken to hospital in Dunedin this month, apparently after overdosing on party pills. Side-effects include heart palpitations, increased blood pressure and increased body temperature. In extreme cases, piperazines can cause hallucinations and convulsions.

Head of the police national drug intelligence bureau, Detective Inspector Gary Knowles, a member of the committee, has been quoted as saying that it is of "grave concern to me that these pills are being labelled as a natural high, when people taking them have no way of really knowing what's in them and what they could do to them".

Other commentators have said that bringing the drugs under a legal framework could result in them being regulated and sold with full disclosure of ingredients, and better health advice.

There could also be constraints on sales at sites such as 24-hour convenience stores, where there is potential for them to be sold to people coming from parties and dances with their judgement already impaired.

Customs official Jules Lovelock said that border staff had recorded increased commercial importation of piperazines, and that some were being marketed as legal substitutes for class A and B drugs.

A manager of the Frenzy and Exodus wholesaler, Elixir Technologies, said the pills posed "little risk to society and that's the thing people have to bear in mind".