The 2000s Party Pill: How Legal MDMA Alternatives Came and Went From NZ Dairies

There was a time when having to scout Discord for hours on a Friday night for a trustworthy dealer wasn't a thing. You didn't need to hang around for a reply from your friend’s friend who has a hookup, or desperately hustle before a gig or festival to get your hands on the good stuff. You could just go to the dairy. 

In the early 2000s, “Legal highs’ like  “Charge”, “Kandi” and “Red Hearts” lined shelves at nightclubs, petrol stations and yes, local dairies, and were a pretty common addition to any night out on the piss. If you were 18 or over, you could buy one of these colourful condom-like packets containing an abundance of pills for only $25. 

And, because of a combination of legality and ease of access, age wasn't a factor, either. Cameron*, who would buy party pills with his friends when he was 13-years-old, told VICE how the “pocket money” priced party pills attracted him and his friends.

“Growing up in a small town, there's nothing much to do. All of your idols are your older siblings and their mates. So as a friend group we started doing psychedelics and stuff quite young. But these party pills were cheaper than a tab of acid, so we did them,” he said.

“Our mate's parents owned a dairy and we'd just nick them from there. Or convince someone to buy them for us, basically.”

Yes, this was the early 2000’s, and the age of Aotearoa’s party pill epidemic. 

Widely known as the party pill – or the dance pill in its original raver community – the drug's main ingredient was the then-legal substance, benzylpiperazine (BZP). BZP was developed in the 70s as an antidepressant but, soon after it was found to be ineffective, its usage ground to a halt. Although it was unable to temper depression and anxiety, the drug was a strong stimulant similar to Dextroamphetamine. Or, y’know: dexys. 

“They were quite euphoric. High energy. Sort of like a slightly more neurotic version of MDMA,” said Cameron.

“We'd go out skating or go to a party and have a good time, so they were quite social drugs.” 

And Cameron and his friends weren’t just one small group of kids throwing back BZP. Despite it being illegal to advertise party pills in major media – TV, radio or print – the next 8 and a half years saw 26 million party pills sold to 400,000 consumers. The majority of those customers were 18 to 24-year-olds. 

Now in his early 30s, Cam recalls that the joy rate of the pills was hit or miss. 

“There were heaps of different makes and it was a bit like playing roulette. Sometimes it would be awesome, like real MDMA vibes. But like, even more energy. And sometimes you just take it and you just get an instant migraine and just be in bed. But it was never like bad trips, because they weren't psychedelic.”

And these gnarly reactions weren’t uncommon. 

Side effects noted by one study included poor appetite, hot and cold flushes, heavy sweating, stomach pain and nausea, headaches, tremors and shakes, loss of energy, strange thoughts and mood swings – with around half the party pill takers involved saying they suffered from sleep problems after using the substance. 

Given how recently BZP was legally available in NZ, it’s not hard to come across someone who’s tried it – and is probably still shuddering at the thought of its side effects. One reader told VICE the pills had given her the worst hangover of her life: “I remember crashing hard, sleeping under a rug on the floor, and hallucinating about Sonic the Hedgehog.” 

The party pill hangover was such an infamous side effect that some even believed they were built in so manufacturers could pedal hangover cures. As Lucy* told VICE, the day after taking the pills is what really stands out. 

“Sitting in a beanbag, wrapped in my duvet, with my teeth chattering and my heart racing, wondering what the hell was wrong with me,” she said. “Way worse than comedowns from…less legal substances.”

Another reader shared that the one time they tried the pills when they were underage was enough to turn them off drugs full stop. “I didn’t want to talk to anyone and remember feeling uncomfortable in my own skin and just wishing it would go away. It put me off trying anything else like that so I guess it had a silver lining.”

ENTER, STARBOY

Life-changing hangovers aside, it seems the party pill wave started with a genuine drive to make a difference. Matt “STARBOY” Bowden, a North Island local with the sensibilities of an overly invested theatre kid turned steam-punk rock musician, was the catalyst. And he doesn’t just dress like it – a 3 part “space opera” already under his belt, his next musical venture, the Liberty Over Time album, is also out soon.

“The BBC called me the ‘Godfather of Legal Highs’ which I take as meaning somebody who provides care, guidance and spiritual direction,” he told VICE.

And as much as it sounds a bit wishy-washy, pseudo-spiritual to dream of guiding others in this way, Bowden’s origins are far from whimsical. In 2001, Bowden’s cousin passed away from an overdose of ecstasy, the 3rd death of its kind in the country. 

“I felt like I was on a mission from God, honestly,” said Bowden. “When my cousin died, and then another friend died with the methamphetamine problem, I felt I should do absolutely everything possible to change the situation. I created the idea of party pills as harm reduction”

Although Bowden had no academic background in science, he was familiar with the herbal highs that contained plant-based substances like ephedrine and lysergic acid. After tee-ing up with various scientists and lecturers, and learning from product developers overseas, Bowden approached the NZ Government. 

“I went to Wellington and just asked them ‘who's making the drug laws?’ I said, "I need to have an appointment with them.”

“I said, ‘if we supply a safer alternative, at a better price, then that will reduce demand for dangerous substances and reduce harm’. And they agreed that what we were doing worked with policy.”

“They said basically, that they would alert the police and the authorities to essentially leave us alone. They said, ‘don't kill anybody and try to stay out of the media’. The idea seemed to be that if we're not causing a problem, there's no need for any intervention from the government.” 

As shocking as it sounds in a country that failed to even legalise cannabis, Bowden wasn’t surprised that his legal highs were informally approved. “I was just a young man with incredible amounts of self confidence. That's all just the real belief in what I was doing, and that it was right for the community.”

And that was that: in the space of a year Bowden used BZP as the main ingredient in STARGATE INTERNATIONAL’S party pills. Not soon after they hit the shelves.

Bowden’s business made millions. He claims almost half a million people tried the pills, with 26 million sold. Cold hard cash side, the crisis at the core of the issue seemed somewhat on its way to improvement. At least, according to Bowden. 

“I was having incredible levels of job satisfaction as tens of thousands of people were quitting meth and taking pills instead,” he said. 

And he wasn’t wrong. Despite the mixed and somewhat negative experiences that people had with party pills, research into usage of the products, funded by the Inter-Agency Committee on Drugs and the Ministerial Committee on Drug Policy, confirmed that of those who used illegal drugs and party pills, 44.1% recently stopped using illegal drugs and 45.6% used party pills so they could avoid using illegal drugs.

THE NEXT STEP

However, STARGATE wasn’t the only manufacturer producing the pills.Their products were quickly joined on dairy shelves by other brands, and later synthetic weed, with other “entrepreneurs” jumping on the popularity of commercially available legal highs. 

No copyright was placed on STARGATE’S BZP product, which enabled other manufacturers to create their own MDMA and amphetamine substitutes. Whether it would’ve made a difference to the future of party pills is up for debate. Soon, a booming market of similar-looking, counterfeit products was hitting the shelves. 

Bowden admits that as an “idealist fascinated by the crusade”, he “wasn’t thinking that much about controlling the market”.  And once the ball got rolling, STARGATE started developing other products. In 2005, they began trials for EASE, an ecstasy substitute. Bowden says that trials showed it was preferred over ecstasy by almost half of a more than 1000 people cohort.. However EASE never made it to retail, as it contained methylone, which was considered a controlled substance by the Ministry of Health.

But with other producers looking to create their own vibrant concoctions to pull in party-hard customers, and an unregulated market, other things started ending up in party pills. Ketones, used to manage opiate dependence, and Methylenedioxypyrovalerone, a stimulant reported to produce effects similar to those of cocaine and meth, were prevalent. 

With questionable pills showing up left right and centre, party pills became a far less reliable alternative. A 2005 study that assessed a Christchurch emergency ward showed that there were 80 BZP-related admissions and 15 toxic (non-epileptic) seizures were recorded over 5 months – although all evidence backs that no one ever died from taking party pills while they were legal. 

THE BEGINNING OF THE END 

Seven years deep into the party pill craze, the changing nature of the products drew the attention of the expert advisory committee on drugs at The Ministry of Health. The committee included representatives from government agencies, customs, police and the health and justice ministries, as well as independent experts in addiction and pharmacology. It was all chaired by a sandy-haired young man who could, at that point, drink a Corona without flinching: Sir Ashley Bloomfield.

VICE spoke with Sir-Doctor-Professor Bloomfield about how this unregulated market led to the pills ultimate ban — which as it turns out, wasn’t actually a ban at all. 

“What often happens in the political sphere is an almost knee jerk response, which is just drugs equals bad, therefore, ban,” said Bloomfield. 

“But we were working with Jim Anderton, and he was very intent on a regulatory response that was supported by evidence. We got some funding together and we commissioned several [studies].” 

The decision was made not to categorise the party pill in the typical Class A/B/C system while still under research, which meant BZP based pills fell into the somewhat mythical Class D category. 

An amendment made to the Misuse of Drugs Act permitted these “Class D” substances to be available under a regulatory regime. But fundamental to that regulatory regime was that those who were supplying and marketing these substances had to provide some proof of the safety.

And despite Bowden’s best efforts to prove the safety and effectiveness of the party pills through STARGATE’S own research and trials, along with the Massey University studies commissioned in 2006, the evidence presented wasn’t solid enough for the committee to approve. The amount of manufacturers had grown – mass production of party pills from unregulated sources flooded the market. Most of these sources weren’t prepared to prove the safety of their substances, either.  

The lack of effort from the party pill peddlers, in Bloomfields words, “had the same impact as a ban.”

The usual concerns with illegal substances going underground and being ruled by gangs were proven comically wrong when BZP was suddenly unavailable to the public. Once the party pill fell from the shelves there was no evidence that anyone was trying to seek it out, as Bloomfield shared. 

“People say ‘if you take that away, people will only use harder drugs’. Well, we certainly didn't see any evidence in the first few years of a shift towards illicit substances, MDMA or methamphetamine.” 

And the reason why?

“It wasn't that great a substance,” said Bloomfield. “It was like an equivalent of No-Doz, but you got a terrible hangover or headache afterwards.” When asked if he’d ever dabbled in BZP himself, Bloomfield said he “never really felt the need to… I enjoy my cup of coffee every day.” 

BZP remained a regulated substance for a year. Eventually, a change in the law meant it was classified as a Class C drug, making it illegal in early 2008. Since then, party pills have been off the market, and the days you could rock up to a rural dairy and split a pack of Dextroamphetamine-alikes are long gone. 

INFINITY AND BEYOND 

Just because party pills are no longer a staple of a NZ night out, it doesn’t mean we haven’t sought out a bunch of other ways to get cooked legally. The couch-burning reputation many sought so hard to attain continues to be upheld year in and year out. 

Whether it’s vapes, nangs or misuse of pharmaceutical prescriptions, legally obtained drugs and legal highs are still out there. And given the popularity of these semi-suss drug substitutes, it seems unlikely that any changes in their legality will stop the next gen in Aotearoa from seeking alternative highs. If vapes end up losing their legal status, you can expect kava to have a sudden boom. Basically, as Bloomfield says “humans have and always will use mind altering substances.”

Bloomfield favours harm minimisation, rather than enforcement based approaches, to drug reduction –  citing the positives of decriminalisation and safe injection rooms made available in other countries, as well as the “fantastic” recent availability of drug testing at festivals and events thanks to Know Your Stuff. 

So, have we reached the end of an era with synthetic drugs? Not as far as Bowden is concerned. Although STARGATE was dissolved in 2017, Bowden says he is continuing his research into safer drug alternatives, now with a different end goal – one he hopes the public will have more empathy for. 

“Back then, I felt people had the right to take party drugs, and obviously they do. Now I am fighting for people’s right to mental health sovereignty,” he said. “The world’s gripped in a mental health epidemic of trauma-related illness.” 

Bowden asserts that psychoactive drugs like LSD and psilocybin - as well as ketamine - are the best solutions we have to address anxiety and trauma. But these solutions are yet to see government support.   

“The only country in the world that has got a purpose-built regulatory system for the rapid design, development and deployment of new psychoactive substances is New Zealand,” he said. “So the onus is on us to stand up and take our place as leaders in this area on the planet and use that system to provide solutions to the rest of the planet. That's what we've got to do next.”

“Doing it next time, I will push for the idea of the clinician distributing them, not general retail. Some things we will use in a clinical setting, for other things it might be appropriate to take your medicine in a social setting, like a festival, as it may work better with dance and music. 

If you just want to get fucked up then let’s talk about why you want to get fucked up. Maybe we can give people an opportunity to address other issues.”

CHECK OUT THE FULL TIMELINE OF EVENTS BELOW:  

• 1973 - BZP was initially researched as a treatment for depression but shelved when it was discovered to have a similar effect to dexamphetamine. 
• 1997 - Herbal highs are informally available in dance circles.  
• 2000 - After the passing of his cousin, Matt Bowden pitches his idea to the national drug policy team and begins the manufacturing of BZP party pills.  
• 2000 - Party pills become legally available on the market 

• 2006 - The Ministry of Health commissions 4 studies on party pill/BZP use and its effects in NZ. 
• 2007 -  In June an expert advisory committee chaired by a young Dr Ashley Bloomfield recommended BZP be made a controlled substance after study data wasn’t conclusive enough in favour of BZP remaining unregulated. 
• 2008 - Changes to the Misuse of Drug Act which classed BZP as a Class C drug in New Zealand, making it illegal as of March.  
• 2013 -  The Psychoactive Substances Act is introduced. The purpose of the globally progressive Act is to regulate the availability of psychoactive substances in New Zealand to protect the health of, and minimise harm to, individuals who use psychoactive substances. 
• 2013 onwards - No psychoactive substances have since been approved by the government for legal distribution. 

Rachel Barker is a writer / producer at VICE NZ in Aotearoa.