Risk-taking kiwis protest looming "party pill" ban

WELLINGTON, Mar 8 (Reuters) Skiing down active volcanoes is perfectly alright, so is bungy-jumping off canyons and ''zorbing'' down mountains in massive inflatable plastic balls.

But should risk-taking New Zealanders be allowed to pop the legal stimulants they call ''party pills''? Frenzy, Torque and D-lite may not be New Zealand's best-known inventions, but kiwi fans fighting a proposed government ban argue their legal highs are safer than many of the small country's dangerous pastimes.

''There have been 26 million party pills consumed and zero deaths,'' says Aucklander Matt Bowden, 36, who started the national craze that has grown into a NZ (US) million industry over the last six years.

Bowden, chair of party pills industry body the Social Tonics Association of New Zealand (STANZ), has argued many sports should be banned before the pills are if the country is to be consistent about evaluating risk.

''You're more likely to die in a 747, or driving to work in Auckland traffic,'' he said.

CATTLE DRENCH Initially synthesised by Bowden and a neuropharmacologist in 2000 to help friends break their addictions to methamphetamine, the synthetic benzylpiperazine (BZP)-based party pills have taken the country of four million by storm.

Costing 40 dollars for a pack of four, the pills are sold everywhere from service stations and hairdressers to 24-hour party pill boutiques, and even that iconic institution of laid-back New Zealand life, the corner ''dairy'' or convenience store.

But BZP's unlikely pedigree -- created as a cattle drench in 1944 to kill bowel parasites in cattle -- means little was known about its effects on humans when it burst onto the social scene.

''I sometimes think the people selling them should have a sign: 'Come and queue up for your cattle drench here','' says Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton, who will report on whether the pills should be banned later this month.

Despite opposition calls for a ban, Anderton said he will not follow the example of Australia, Denmark and the United States and issue a knee-jerk prohibition before accurate information is gathered.

''I don't just turn up on a Monday morning and write down on the back of an envelope how many things I want to ban. There's a process. We have an evidence-based drug policy,'' he told Reuters.

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