The TGA has decided not to ban poppers
Image: Image: Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons - cc-by-sa-4.0.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has announced that it won’t ban alkyl nitrites—colloquially know as poppers—and instead will allow them to be purchased from behind the counter at pharmacies.
The decision comes almost nine months after the TGA proposed an amendment to outlaw the substance, a classification that would have seen poppers moved into the same category as heroin and made their possession, sale, or use a criminal offence.
However, following community backlash and advice from queer health advocates, the TGA postponed its decision on the prospective ban and requested further public consultations to assess approaches to access and the risks associated with alkyl nitrites.
A Change.org petition against a ban was also circulated online, garnering more than 5,500 signatures.
In their announcement this week, the TGA has confirmed that from February next year, amyl nitrites will be classified as Schedule 3, meaning they can be purchased from behind the counter at a pharmacist pending appropriate packaging.
Isoamyl nitrite, butyl nitrite, isobutyl nitrite, and octyl nitrite will remain on Schedule 4, which will restrict them to ‘prescription only’ access.
And isopropyl nitrite and n-propyl nitrite will be classified as Schedule 10, prohibiting them from sale, supply, and use, due to their links to eye damage.
Poppers are currently unregulated and the ingredients used in them differ, prompting the TGA to ban a specific chemical used in some poppers, while allowing varying levels of access to others.
Chief Executive at Thorne Harbour Health, Simon Ruth, said that while the decision showcased the power of community advocacy, he was concerned about the potential short term implications.
“The fact that we’ve seen Australia turn around from a decision to ban amyl is actually quite remarkable,” he said.
“It’s really a testament to our community’s continued legacy of mobilisation and activism. We can’t take that for granted as other parts of the world haven’t been so successful.”
He added that while the decision means amyl nitrites may eventually be available through pharmacies, there are no products currently on the market for this purpose in Australia.
“This is a reasonably good outcome, but we’re concerned about what this will mean next year,” he said.
“It may be two years before we see amyl nitrites in the marketplace.
“We’re going to potentially see affected communities fall into a grey area. We’re now calling on state governments to work with the community to ensure that we don’t see gay men and other men who have sex with men criminalised for possession and use of amyl in the meantime.”
Even once poppers are available at pharmacies, some advocates have warned that prescription or not, the process would out patients as men who have sex with men to both their GPs and pharmacists, leaving them open to discrimination and homophobia.
Over at Junkee, Jared Richards wrote that while this may be a non-issue in areas that are LGBTI-friendly and queer sexual health-literate, the situation could be vastly different for people living in regional or rural areas.
“On a practical level, pharmaceutical access to amyl also assumes that all sex is pre-planned, or that bottoms will simply carry their bottle around with them,” he wrote.
“Pragmatically, poppers are best sold as they are now, in sex shops and saunas, often late at night. But under the TGA’s regulations, only pharmacists can issue them wth a little lecture.”
For the TGA’s full announcement, visit: https://www.tga.gov.au/scheduling-decision-final/final-decisions-matters-referred-march-2019-joint-acms-accs-meeting
The whole thing does smell fishy. I have never used actual amyl nitrate but was under the impression that it was better than the spin offs after it was banned way back. It is possible to purchase amyl nitrate online from France which I would imagine would allow it to be legally imported?
Wow, what a victory for the LGTB community, NOT!!!! Rather, What a slap in the face !!
Let’s take a good look at this in detail shall we ?
1. The TGA are moving “amyl nitrite” (poppers in Australia do NOT contain amyl either by the way) into schedule 3, meaning it “can” be sold over the counter at a chemist from Feb 2020 BUT a medicinal product containing alkyl nitrite registered through the TGA is currently unavailable, and there probably never will be EVER!! There is NO Australian manufacturer of these products and there probably never will be EVER!! The TGA know this, they mention it several times throughout their ruling, so what a joke. So if there is no manufacturer, no Australian supplier then who is going to give us our “amyl nitrite” over the counter come Feb 2020 ? Certainly not your local chemist!!
2. It takes an extraordinary amount of money and time to get a product approve by the TGA then a manufacturer has to take the risk of getting a chemist to actually stock the product and we all know that’s not going to happen, take a look at the “Pharmacy Guild of Australia’s” submission to the TGA – https://www.tga.gov.au/sites/default/files/consultation-submission-regulatory-options-alkyl-nitrites-pga.pdf
Even if you did magically get your product registered with the TGA I guarantee you wont see them at Chemist Warehouse or any pharmacy for that matter, they wont even stock Pjur Backdoor Lube so what makes you think they will stock amyl nitrite?
3. From a business point of view, it would be a huge risk (and not a worth while one) to try and get your “amyl nitrite” product into a chemist, so we are actually worse off than before this horrible back handed decision was laid down. The whole “popper” industry is not that big and lucrative as some people might think. So how does this ruling keep us safe? How does this ruling give us “unrestricted” access to the products we need to stay safe? and they are not even giving us the products we actually use here in Australia.
The “amyl” popper myth, for those who don’t know, Poppers in Australia don’t contain amyl nitrite – the TGA told us so right here: https://www.tga.gov.au/testing-alkyl-nitrite-poppers
So what is the point of giving us something we don’t even use in the first place ??
4. The TGA assume anal sex is always planned, sex between men is always a “gay” thing, this just shows the world how “out of touch they actually are”
Sexual health products, especially poppers, are not suited to a pharmacy environment. The stigma attached to these products are already so widely known, and frowned upon in some circles, that “attempting” to place them as a “pharmacy only” medicine just places the LGTB and sexual health movement back to the 60’s and defeats the purpose, so are we supposed to just cop it?
These products are suited to an age restricted environment, like an adult shop or sauna avoiding the embarrassment and harassment that will now be associated with “attempting” to purchase these products from a chemist. Really, what can a chemist tell us that we dont already know ourselves, some of us have been using “poppers” longer than your local chemist has even been alive! No one has died from “popper” use, no one has been seriously injured from “popper” use – we know this because the TGA told us so, unless you dont read the warning labels and drink the stuff – (idiot at rainbow serpent festival)
Not every guy who likes having sex with other guys is “out” Not every guy who likes “occasionally” having sex with other guys is going to go into his small town chemist and ask to buy “amyl nitrite” because he wants to find guy at a “beat” that night, so the spread of infectious diseases from anal tears will be back on the rise and all because the TGA have to stick their noses into places they dont need to be in.
5. The TGA have left the products we actually use “isobutyl nitrite” for example, where they originally were scheduled but made changes to an Appendix to only allow them to be sold with a script (again, no one manufactures these products in Australia and compound chemists don’t make these products despite the claims by the TGA) or to be sold as a “machine lubricant”
So which one is it TGA? are these products medicine or machine lubricant? Do these products have a therapeutic use or an industrial use ? (like leather cleaner) Can I use them for anal sex or lubing up my machine parts?
In closing I would like to say that this horrible ruling has made these products deliberately unobtainable, they have increased homophobia and marginalised an already ostracised community. They have increased the “risky” sexual behavior that we have worked so hard to educate our community both gay and straight, against. We know the horrible ramifications that such behavior has on the human race and this decision will only elevate this to disgustingly higher levels with the spread of infectious diseases due to anal tears by guys who cannot get access to “poppers” unnecessarily.
This decision will have serious and in some cases, deadly, results from the restriction of these products.
Imagine being a guy who sometimes like to have sex with other guys, having to get admitted to hospital with a severe anal tear and then having to explain to his “wife” how the hell that happened in the first place!! Let me remind you that the whole “ugly” situation could have been avoided by the TGA butting out of our sex lives and a $20 little bottle that has done no one any harm EVER!!
This decision is not based on community safety, it is based on bias and fear by an uneducated and out of touch group of people who clearly dont give a stuff.
We should be protesting against this decision and making our voices REALLY heard rather than just having some homophobic bureaucrat tell us what to do. I hope this post is read and picked up and taken action by the Nitrite Action Group or some other group that has the means to challenge this disgusting ruling.
When is the TGA going to allow gay and bi men to donate blood?
Still waiting after 20 very long years!
1 year deferral period list:
* USA
* NZ
* Australia
* Northern Ireland and Ireland
3 month deferral period list:
* Canada
* England, Wales and Scotland
So! the TGA demonstrates it’s arrogance once again. There’s a strong element of homophobia in the decision!
Not only have they left a grey area until they get around to rewriting the poisons regulations, but they also have effectively left it up to chemists to lecture us about our use of poppers.
Many will not accept this arrogant overreach of the TGA!
So nothing has really changed. It will still be a situation which allows the law to incarcerate anyone who sells or buys their poppers under the counter, even after they get around to rewriting their restrictive regulation sometime after February 2020! They move with all the speed of a snail and the moronic understanding of the ACL.
The TGA (A QUANGO) is so understanding (sarcasm!) and at the same time SO! heavyhanded.
What this effectively means is that they will restrict supply via chemists (in that, no chemists will actually stock it) AND, a large portion of revenue of local and community small business owners will be lost AND generally more harmful, illegal substitutes will soon hit the market.
The TGA are a massive over reach into what should be the remit of a health ministry or department, you know, actual scientists and health experts with chemistry degrees and such.
This is a ban just not being called a ban and is demonstrative of the problem we have with prohibition in Australia and the way we classify drugs in general