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New independent research has been released showing party pills are being used as alternatives to illegal drugs.

45.2% of party pill users – interviewed as part of the Massey University’s Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SHORE) study – who also used illegal drugs, stated that they used party pills to avoid using illegal alternatives.

44.1% of party pill users who also used illegal drugs stated that they now mainly used party pills instead.

The SHORE study, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Health, consisted of a random national household sample of 2,010 people aged 13-45 years old with data collected via telephone interviews.

The aim of the study was to provide national population statistics on the prevalence and patterns of legal party pill use in New Zealand, and to provide data on the harms and problems related to the use of legal party pills in New Zealand.

The Social Tonics Association of New Zealand (STANZ) has welcomed the release of the study.

STANZ Chairman, Matt Bowden, said he was particularly pleased with the finding that almost half of the respondents that used party pills, did so to avoid illegal drugs.

“One third of respondents who had used party pills, which extrapolates to an enormous number of Kiwis, said that they had recently stopped their illegal drug use. This is hugely significant research and almost certainly New Zealand’s biggest ever success in reducing illegal drug use,” he said.

“The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs has warned of the possibility that if party pills were prohibited there could be a swing back to lethal illegal drugs. This research released today confirms this,” he said.

Bowden said party pills are serving their purpose as a safer, legal alternative to illegal drugs.

“People are choosing safer legal alternatives and, as senior New Zealand police officers have noted, we are seeing a significant drop in demand for methamphetamine type drugs simply because party pills are available.”

“This was my stated intention in developing safer drug alternatives – thousands of people are quitting more dangerous drugs to use safer alternatives. The findings in this research are of international significance,” he said.

“This is effective harm minimisation in action. This is precisely why New Zealand is now leading the world for all the right reasons in that we haven’t had a single ecstasy-related death in five years.
Bowden stated that party pills are being used across the entire community.

“The fact that at least 20 million have been sold without any lasting negative effects is an exemplary safety record.

“A lot of these people would probably have tried illegal drugs one day anyway. A high percentage of normal people kiwis do, the important point is that more people are using them as intended and this may well be the most effective solution to the P problem that we are ever going to see.”

The side effects of over indulgence and hangovers are noted in the research along with some drug users cocktailing party pills with illegal drugs.

“This must have been happening all over the country every weekend for the past 5 years and yet we see no deaths or lasting injuries.

“It tells us that the time we put into research to start off with in searching for the safest compound to use was time well spent. Over 99% of people have not had to go to hospital, some people had headaches and nausea but it’s nothing compared to the murder, violent crime waves and death we saw from methamphetamine, and that is what this is all about.”

Mr Bowden said he was pleased that most users of party pills gave up using them quite early, that there was very low incidence of any form of addiction to party pills, that there is extremely low level of long-term use and that only 0.3 per cent reported any significant negative impacts, despite a “lack of common-sense regulatory controls around the industry”.

“We share the view of 60% of respondents that tighter controls are required around how party pills are manufactured, labelled, marketed and sold. We are lobbying Government to introduce more sensible regulation and very much hope to see these introduced as soon as possible.”

“They are not for everybody, and to completely avoid alcohol and drugs may be the safest option, but while these products are taking more people off illegal drugs than they’re bringing on, we obviously need them available, there is just some fine tuning to do with the regulations to cut some idiots out and develop some better skill sets around point of sale.”

SHORE Party Pill research findings included:

View the full report here

•20% of New Zealanders sampled (age range 13-45) had ever tried Party Pills.

•15% of total sample surveyed had used Party Pills in the last year.

•60.8% of people who had ever used Party Pills had stopped taking them after a brief period of use, with the most common reasons for ceasing use being “was just experimenting (52.5%)” “hangover/bad comedown (27.1%)” and “health related reasons (17.8%)”.

•Only 5.7% of Party Pill users had taken them weekly or more often.

•The average number of Party Pills used at a time was 2.6 pills. Only 10.9% of people had ever taken more than 8 pills at once.

•Only one in 100 users of Party Pills had ever had to attend hospital as a result of Party Pill use. Only one in 250 had been taken there by medical staff (e.g. ambulance), the rest all attended voluntarily.