In more ways than one, vapes are the new party pills. (Image: Tina Tiller.)
In more ways than one, vapes are the new party pills. (Image: Tina Tiller.)

SocietyAugust 29, 2023

I was a party pill industry insider. Here’s why the vaping problem gives me deja vu

In more ways than one, vapes are the new party pills. (Image: Tina Tiller.)
In more ways than one, vapes are the new party pills. (Image: Tina Tiller.)

We’ve already witnessed a legal, ‘offramp’ drug become a dangerous fixation for young people in this country. An anonymous industry insider reflects on her time within the BZP scene, and explains why she’s getting flashbacks.

Consuming all the media coverage about vaping ahead of the election, I can’t ignore a persistent sense of deja vu.

I’m struck by the similarities between the vaping problem and Aotearoa’s experience with legal party pills in the early 2010s. Just like with vaping, party pills were touted as a harm-reducing option compared to dangerous drugs on the scene at the time (namely methamphetamine), but they ended up taking on a life of their own, with rangatahi bearing the brunt of the harm. I should know: I was closely involved in the party pill industry, and saw first hand how these “legal highs” got out of control. 

Cast your mind back to 2008. The P epidemic was taking lives with alarming regularity, and destroying thousands more. Because methamphetamine is a Class A drug and users risked arrest for possessing it, they were dissuaded from seeking help for problems with the drug. Communities were being ravaged by meth and policy makers had their heads in the sand about the issue. 

This was the impetus for the party pill movement, figure-headed by an eccentric musician with a unique magnetism and influence before the God complex completely took over (I’ll call him “M”). Recreational drugs like benzylpiperazine (BZP) were seen as an offramp to drugs like meth and ecstasy; a legal alternative to the dangerous and unregulated substances riddling the nation. Scientists and academics like Keith Bedford, John Kerr and Bruce Cohen were leading conversations about drug harm, and people like M sincerely believed party pills could be part of the solution. 

2008 was also the year I met my ex-husband, who I’ll call “J”. He was involved in the party pill scene from the very beginning, working with all the major manufacturers. He drew the molecular structure of novel compounds for getting high, which were then made in China and imported back into Aotearoa. At the time, I was studying for a postgraduate diploma in international business, and I became fascinated by the potential for the party pill industry to kick off social change. A lecturer encouraged me to use party pills as a case study for a group project. 

So there I was: standing at the front of a lecture hall, flanked by my group members, opening a presentation about party pills to a large audience that included my lecturers, the self-proclaimed king of party pills, and his right-hand man, who was now my boyfriend. I looked up at the audience and thought, “Holy shit, am I really about to talk about what is essentially a massive legal drug ring?”

More and more people became convinced by the theory that party pill drugs were an agent for positive social change. BZP dominated parties, events and venues across the country, smoothly aided by its legal status. Party pills exploded in popularity, and soon they were being sold over the counter at dairies. 

I know BZP helped some people who would otherwise never have got off meth, but because party pills had a rosy reputation as the legal, harm-reducing option, a channel of unexpected harm was opened: a whole new generation started using BZP, some of whom might never have tried meth in the first place. Suddenly this drug was looking a lot less like an offramp, and more like an onramp.

I watched with horror from within the industry as party pill manufacturers became more and more reckless. They made stronger products with more additives and put profits over people’s health again and again. It was a race to the bottom, too: if one manufacturer acted responsibly, the next cowboy would undercut them and dominate the market. Synthetic cannabis came on the scene, and things turned ugly fast

As the regulations around “legal highs” got tighter, manufacturers of party pills entered a game of whac-a-mole with the Ministry of Health: each time a compound was banned, industry insiders would create a new one. I watched this process happen in real time: as soon as the ministry banned a compound, J would draw up another molecular structure and send it off to China. It would return to New Zealand in powder form, and some guys in the factories here would smoke it off tin foil to see if it got them high with no immediate negative consequences. It that worked, they tinkered with the dosage, added flavouring, and poured it into vats to be mixed with dried plant products. Then it would be packaged up and sent to market. 

I sincerely believe people like J tried to make the following point to the ministry: this whac-a-mole process is self-evidently absurd, so let’s pursue the obvious alternative, which is major drug-law reform, starting with the decriminalisation of drugs like cannabis. But what actually ended up happening is that a bunch of dangerously experimental drugs were rushed to market, and ended up in the hands of young people. 

Which brings me to vaping. Just like party pills, vaporisers were touted as an offramp to a more dangerous alternative: cigarettes. Just like party pills, they’ve become trendy among people who might never have been cigarette smokers; widely adopted by rangatahi as the new “cool thing”. Just like with party pills, there is little to no quality control over additives, and little understanding of the long-term health effects. And just like with party pills, regulators and policy makers are dangerously slow to respond, tinkering around the edges of a swirling vortex of harm. 

Kerr, who wrote his masters’ thesis on the history of BZP, told The Spinoff last year that, despite any good intentions about party pills being an offramp drug, it’s clear now they had an onramp effect. “A lot of people who didn’t consider themselves drug users were taking BZP,” he said. “Most users of BZP probably weren’t meth users.” 

Sound familiar? 

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The Sunday EssayAugust 27, 2023

The Sunday Essay: Between the sand and stars

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You will recognise the songs of the birds, my son. You will know the textures of the leaves, the shadows of the trees, the arrangement of Matariki in the sky.

The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.

Illustrations by Gary Venn.

This essay discusses wartime conflict, poverty and briefly mentions suicide. Please take care.

My mother feared the natural world. She preferred the protection of walls. She wanted shelter from the monsoons and dark days. There was no time for nature, no place for it to occupy in her worried mind. Nature was a luxury when her pockets were empty. She could not hear the songs of the bitterns over the sounds of the bombs.

She lived a childhood of death and destruction. Starvation. Poverty and desperation. She dreamed of having a full belly. Of shelter and stability. She met a man who she would marry, who was raised where rivers followed coastal waters. He knew of how they could change their fortunes and which tides would carry them to safety. They took their two babies and set sail. Not knowing if they would ever return home. Not knowing if they would ever see their loved ones again. Not knowing if the reward would ever be worth the risk they were taking.  

The sea and sky were vast blue blankets of danger. It was all that surrounded them for days and nights. They feared the waves would envelop their overloaded fishing boat out of existence. And leave the tiger and whitetip sharks to take them in the dark. All this risk for an uncertainty as immense as the oceans. Yet reaching solid ground was just the start of their journey.

At the camps she met young wives who had become widows at sea. They had witnessed merciless pirates dismember their husbands’ bodies. They helplessly watched rolling heads fall into turbulent waters. What little they had brought with them had been taken. They had nothing and no-one left to accompany them on this journey into the night. 

In this unfamiliar land, familiar eyes told harrowing stories of more starvation. More desperation, desolation, and displacement. Little to no hope. People waiting days, months, years; in limbo for salvation. To be chosen. To resettle and resume life again. Everybody waiting so desperately to resume their lives again. Some found comfort in their shared experiences. For others, the only solace was a noose around the neck. They could find no other peace to calm this ocean of torment. Nothing is guaranteed no matter how much you are willing to give.

The risk was finally rewarded once resettlement came. But the place that she came to would never feel like home. It was hard to feel connected to a place she knew nothing about. She had difficulty assimilating to this foreign world: there was the language she could not master, the people she could not relate to, the values that she could not understand. But she knew she had to struggle on, because on her shoulders lie many hungry mouths across many seas.

She lives as a stranger in a strange land, working every day without rest until her body is broken. She has no time to appreciate the beauty of this place; she needs to make the risk worth the reward. She could not name the tūī who sang in the pōhutukawa tree, or describe how forcefully the roots of this tree intertwined with the earth. Instead, she said, “We may have broken hearts, but we have full stomachs.” And so we will survive.  

I had a sense of shame that I could not tell the pīwakawaka or korimako from their songs. I felt emptiness from not knowing where I’m from, but also not knowing where I am.

How does a kauri grow without roots to anchor it? Without earth to nourish it? What happens to this tree with no roots? It drifts with the wind, with no path and no guide. I had nobody to help me navigate this land. I could not stand still for long enough to feel the changing of the seasons. I was always moving to distill the sinking feeling of not belonging. With each step I take, my feet balance my mind and heart between two different worlds. I am caught between both but never belonging to either.  I am unsure of which way to orient my feet to pull myself forward. 

I tried my best to blend into my surroundings, but always felt like a weed amongst the flowers. An imposter. Always painfully aware that I was different to those around me. I was too wary to open up under the scrutiny of the sun. And so I moved through the world quietly, careful not to disturb. Keeping those closest to me at a distance.

There is so much to learn about the stars and the sky it can feel overwhelming. There was only time to focus on food, warmth, shelter. Fulfilling the basics for survival. Nature does not feature on the hierarchy of needs. There were always other priorities; always so much to learn. I was behind and always trying to catch up. Always following because I didn’t know where I was going. Always moving because I have never known permanence. Always looking for the home that I had never known. Always trying to keep busy to forget. I was trying so hard to make the reward worth the risk. There were so many expectations of what I needed to become, there was no time for me to belong. 

One day, when I needed it most, I met the person who I would marry. They made sure I had shelter, warmth, and safety, so that I could take care of the rest of me. They gave us a house that we made a home — a place where I felt safe and belonged. I had time to stop and rest my feet; to slow down, listen, and breathe. I needed time and space to observe the world without feeling ashamed and alone. I needed time and space to let go of the past to make room for the present.

Finally, I see how shadows slowly lengthen and retract with the position of the sun in the sky. How the shade of the water subtly changes each hour of the day. How the shoreline drifts with the shifting of the sands. How spring gently brings golden flowers to kōwhai trees. Finally, I can hear the birds more clearly and feel connected to this world. I am grateful to have had this time to build up knowledge of the place around me. So I am able to pass along what I had not received. 

You will recognise the songs of the birds, my son. Their colours. Their shapes.

You will know the textures of the leaves, the shadows of the trees, the arrangement of Matariki in the sky. You will know the shape of each bay, crescent moons snaking along the coastline home. Your presence is as natural as the sea that hugs the shore. You belong here, between the sand and the stars. May you not question who you are and where you’re from.

Your journey will be different. Peaceful. Your life will be free of conflict, despair, and upheaval. You will not worry about empty stomachs nor empty pockets. There will be less uncertainties occupying your mind and fewer forces dictating your choices. No desperation etched into your eyes. The risks and rewards you balance will not weigh so heavily on your head and heart. You will feel whole and not torn by two worlds; as complete as one can be. You are exactly where you are meant to be. 

You will have time and space to grow at your own pace, to learn about the stars and sky. To explore the treasures of this earth and to connect with the beauty offered by the natural world. You will bask under the warmth of the sun, staring at the sky above. Feel the weightlessness of an open heart floating on salty waters, content in that moment, drifting where the sea takes you. You will have a lifetime of standing still until you are ready to move; a chance to grow roots to anchor you home. 

With each passing day, you become more aware of your surroundings. All your senses are awakening to absorb the richness of the world. For you, the world is full of so much wonder and magic. You are captivated by the noise of the wind, as it rushes through leaves in its path. You are transfixed by the might of the ocean, crashing before your feet. You love to feel the infinite grains of sand run between your tiny fingers. You hold on tightly to smooth rocks shaped by rough waters over time. The pink hues of sunset finish off your day. The Southerly is in every breath you take. 

Nature is mysterious, majestic, magic. From the force of the moon on the tides, to the power of the sun and water on seeds. You will have time to understand and appreciate it all. You will recognise the songs of the birds and know you are right where you belong. We have journeyed this far for you to belong here, between the sand and the stars. 

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Madeleine Chapman
— Editor