Monday, July 16, 2012



More hypocrisy on party pills

The government today approved a new legal regime for party pills, requiring that they be proved safe before they can be sold. Its not an unreasonable move, which brings party pills under the same sort of regime which applies to other chemicals. At the same time, there's some unpleasant hypocrisy here. Party pills, which are psychoactive, will have to prove themselves safe before being sold. Meanwhile, traditional drugs alcohol and tobacco, which are psychoactive, won't. Under the new regime, its difficult to see how the latter would ever be approved for sale. But hey, they're owned by established interests, rich enough to buy themselves an MP, so they get a free pass, while those disruptive young upstarts get punished.

I favour harm-based standards for drugs. But they must be consistent. This isn't. And as a result, the only message it sends that the government is hypocritical and corrupt, and that the law is an ass.