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New Zealand's legal drug culture is taking a new potentially lethal twist. Experts say over the past year people have begun injecting party pills.
Party pills have become one of the most popular recreational drugs in New Zealand with retailers claiming to have sold 26 million.
Injecting drugs is an image normally associated with hardened drug culture, but for some popping a party pill doesn't get you high enough.
"They've developed such a tolerance for both the drugs and its effects, they they need more of the drug to get the same effect," says addiction expert Dr Lee Nixon.
Experts say injecting BZP - the active ingredient in herbal highs - makes it travel to the heart faster.
While there have been no deaths attributed to BZP, those on the frontline say injecting it carries massive risks.
"The heart for instance has no cushioning against the sudden risk of stimulation and there are some risks for a very small proportion of people it will get thrown out to the point it will stop beating, " says Nixon.
Dirty and shared syringes used to be a risk only associated with illegal drugs. But the injecting of party pills also increases the risk of deadly viruses like hepatitis and HIV spreading.
But party pill manufacturers say the experts claims are just medical propaganda designed to back up a government push to ban the pills.
"Injecting is a health risk and people are advised not to inject anything. But right now the real issue is we would like them regulated," says Party Pill Manufacturer Matt Bowden.
With the increased health risks from injecting any serious harm caused would certainly add urgency to government plans to make party pills a class C illegal drug within six months.
A study made public last week showed the potential risk from the pills
"The weight of evidence from across this body of research is that BZP presents more than just a low risk," Dr Ashley Bloomfield of the Expert
Advisory Committee on Drugs said last week.
One study group ended prematurely, fearing what might have happened if they continued.
BZP is banned in Australia and the US.
