Animal rights groups on pill testing alert

New Zealand’s ‘‘legal high’’ law doesn’t work but testing on animals isn’t the answer and will be met with fierce resistance, opponents say.

A review of the Psychoactive Substances Act found it ‘‘does not function as intended’’, partly because of a ban on using animals for testing.

Unless that ban was lifted, would not work, the review said.

But animal rights groups say the ban was included in the Act after a public outcry and removing it would spark similar outrage.

Tara Jackson, executive director of the New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society, said New Zealanders had defeated the previous government’s attempts to use animals in party pill testing and could do it again. ‘‘The very idea of testing party pills on animals is absurd,’’ she said.

‘‘No amount of testing on rats and dogs, who have biology very different from our own, is going to make it safe to take recreational drugs like synthetic cannabis.’’

The Act was passed in 2013 to regulate products containing psychoactive substances and allow those proven to have a low risk of harm into the market.

An amendment the following year included a ban on animal testing after a the law petition of more than 60,000 signatures was presented to Parliament and public protests were held around the country.

Animal rights group Helping You Help Animals organised and led many of the protests and its members were prepared to take up the cause again, director Carolyn Press-McKenzie said. ‘‘Even the slight murmur of animal tests being reintroduced has us on alert and ready to take to the streets again.’’

The Act included a clause that its effectiveness must be reviewed by the Ministry of Health within five years.

The review found other issues with the law, including the growth of a strong underground market for unapproved, illicit, psychoactive products and a drug classification system unable to keep up with the number of substances imported.

‘‘Anecdotal reports of harm are of considerable concern,’’ the review said.

‘‘The coroner reports current investigations of 40 to 45 deaths provisionally related to psychoactive substances.

‘‘Hospital emergency departments and ambulance services report increased presentations due to psychoactive substances, but reliable data is not available.’’

The planned referendum on personal cannabis use and a bill before Parliament which would introduce tougher penalties for dealing synthetic drugs could influence future policy making, the review found.

‘‘The result of the referendum potentially influences changes to offences and penalties for cannabis-related offences.

‘‘If that was the case, it would be reasonable to expect that offences and penalties for other drugs and psychoactive substances should also be considered.’’

National MP Simeon Brown’s Psychoactive Substances (Increasing Penalty for Supply and Distribution) Bill, is awaiting its third reading. It had originally aimed to increase the maximum prison term for those caught dealing synthetic drugs from two years to eight.

However, that had increased to 14 years following a NZ First amendment which was a condition of their support.

‘‘This will deter suppliers and give our justice system more power to keep these criminals away from the vulnerable people they prey on,’’ Brown said.

‘‘The very idea of testing party pills on animals is absurd. No amount of testing on rats and dogs . . . is going to make it safe to take recreational drugs like synthetic cannabis.’’ Tara Jackson