23rd August 2007
Official minutes show expert committee split on party pills
The Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs is divided over whether party pills pose a low or moderate risk of harm and has
significant reservations about the quality of much of the research on which it based its recommendation to ban BZP,
according to official records.
The evidence comes from the minutes of the Committee’s 3 May meeting which, consistent with Committee practice, are now
available on the National Drug Policy website.
“We think that it is important that MPs are aware of this, especially given that the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill to
ban BZP has now been introduced into Parliament,” said Matt Bowden, Chair of the Social Tonics Association of New
Zealand.
“The minutes show that the Committee is divided on the level of risk posed by BZP and also that, when the decision was
taken last November to recommend that BZP be banned, at least some Committee members felt they were under pressure to
make a decision based on incomplete data,” Mr Bowden said.
The Committee was asked to review the new information which had come to light since its December advice to the
Government as two key studies which informed that advice had since been peer reviewed and STANZ had commissioned a
review by two leading Australian experts into the aborted study conducted by the Medical Research Institute of New
Zealand (MRINZ).
Committee findings include:
- That the term “seizures” was used “to refer to anything from a small twitch to a grand seizure” and that this was “too
broad”. Further, there was a failure in some studies to explain if the seizures were due to withdrawal effects.
- That the MRINZ study was designed to look at driving performance “under an intoxicating dose of BZP with or without
alcohol” rather than at the side effects of BZP and that the results should be used to inform the study’s primary aim.
- That the side effects in the MRINZ study were “were most likely heightened as participants endured at least six hours
of fasting and the substance was taken when it is not normally taken”. The Committee noted this might explain the
discrepancy between the subjects’ experience in the study and their prior experience with BZP.
- That one Committee member expressed the view that the Committee may have placed “too much emphasis” on the MRINZ
study, in part because the aborting of the trial “may have created an emotional overtone that influenced the Committee’s
decision”.
- That one of the peer reviewers of the SHORE study was “very critical” of the study, including of the small sample size
of only 16 people in the intervention group.
“New Zealand prides itself on having an evidence-based drug policy but clearly much of the “evidence” behind the
determination to ban BZP is shoddy and second-rate. This is too important a decision, affecting too many people, to
proceed on such an inadequate basis,” Mr Bowden said.
ENDS
REFERENCES:
EACD Meeting Minutes for November, May, June:
http://www.ndp.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexcm/ndp-committees-eacd-minutes
Latest EACD advice to Minister after reviewing STANZ submission:
http://www.ndp.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagescm/975/$File/bzpletterandertonmay07.pdf
Analysis of submissions on the proposed banning of BZP:
http://www.ndp.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexcm/ndp-publications-bzpanalysissubmissions