Pubdate: Sun, 04 Aug 2013
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Kelly Sinoski

B.C. EYES NEW ZEALAND DRUG LAW

Experiment to Make "Legal Highs" Safer Could Spur Reforms Here: 
Health Officials

B.C. health officials are keeping a close watch on New Zealand as it 
experiments with a novel drug law that could legalize designer party 
drugs or so-called "legal highs" in a bid to make them safer for users.

The new law, enacted two weeks ago, represents a U-turn from the 
traditional approach of banning synthetic drugs. Instead, New Zealand 
will attempt to regulate the substances, allowing their sale if they 
go through rigorous safety testing similar to that for pharmaceuticals.

The so-called new psychoactive substances, which have street names 
like "spice," "meow-meow" and "bath salts" and mimic banned 
substances such as marijuana, ecstasy and methamphetamine, are banned 
in Canada.

Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.'s chief medical officer, said it's doubtful 
the Harper government would adopt a similar approach to deal with 
those drugs, despite Health Canada last month warning Canadians about 
the serious health risks associated with the drugs.

But he added it is worth watching what happens in New Zealand because 
health officials here could potentially use the results - if they 
prove to reduce harm to users - to push for similar reforms later on. 
The biggest users of such party drugs, he said, are usually those 
ages 15 to 20.

"We have a lot of drugs of unknown quality and unknown purity that do 
not have a trivial risk if you buy them on the street. You can 
potentially overdose," Kendall said. "We should look and see what we 
can learn from countries with different drug policies."

He cited a situation in May this year in which B.C. health officials 
were warned to watch out for potential overdoses involving the drug 
fentanyl, an opiate often mistaken for heroin that was believed to be 
linked to 23 deaths this year. The RCMP also found drugs sold as 
ecstasy included a range of substances, including caffeine and methamphetamine.

Kendall noted countries like Portugal, which have decriminalized 
personal use of illicit substances, has seen a decrease in harms from 
drugs as well as a drop in court times and fewer overdoses.

The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition has twice sought unsuccessfully to 
convince the Harper government to not ban the substances but to study 
them, similar to what's being done in New Zealand.

"With banning the substances, all you're doing is guaranteeing that 
people don't know what they're taking and that increases the risk," 
said coalition director Donald MacPherson.

The New Zealand law is getting global scrutiny, with the New 
York-based non-profit Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates 
legalizing marijuana, saying this week that it wants to get a similar 
bill introduced in Congress.

Like many countries, New Zealand has been inundated with designer 
drugs in recent years, and has become frustrated with finding itself 
a step behind the manufacturers. Once a drug is declared illegal, a 
maker often alters its composition slightly to create a new, legal compound.

"These new substances are being created and governments ban them and 
new ones come along. It's a bit of a cat-and-mouse game," MacPherson 
said. "New Zealand decided to stop doing that and say, 'Look this is 
not working because it does not solve the problem.'"

The United Nation's World Drug Report 2013 suggests new psychoactive 
substance abuse is growing at "an unprecedented rate and posing 
unforeseen public health challenges across the world," rising 50 per 
cent, from 166 different substances at the end of 2009 to 251 by mid-2012.

Canadian authorities identified 59 new psychoactive substances in the 
first two quarters of 2012, the report noted, almost as many as in 
the United States.

Dr. Stewart Jessamine, a New Zealand health ministry official, said 
drug makers would need to show their drug is free from high rates of 
serious side effects such as reproductive problems, seizures and 
addiction. They would also need to demonstrate they have clean 
manufacturing labs and secure supply chains.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom