Health chiefs line up their big guns against Ammo

Health officials want to stop all sales of a controversial herbal energy drink which contains a drug with amphetamine-like properties.

This week the distributor of energy drink Ammo voluntarily pulled the product from dairies and limited its sale to nightclubs and adult shops.

But some health officials say the company has not gone far enough.

"It shouldn't be for sale anywhere," said Isobel Stout, vice-president of the Institute of Environmental Health.

The current food code seems set to take the drink off the market, even as benzylpiperazine or BZP, the synthetic drug that it contains, remains on shelves in a stronger pill format.

Ammo contains 75mg of the stimulant. Pills sold in the same venues contain about 85mg to 100mg of BZP.

"This energy drink differs from the tablet or capsule forms of BZP because it is presented in a food format," said Tim Knox, the New Zealand Food Safety Authority's director of domestic and imported foods.

The food code does not permit BZP as a food additive.

Carole Inkster, the authority's director of food standards, said yesterday: "We're considering further actions now, and we've been in touch with the supplier."

Matt Bowden, spokesman for the Social Tonics Association of New Zealand, says his organisation is trying to work out regulations that will allow the product to stay on the adult market.

Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton has introduced legislation that will regulate the sale of pills that contain BZP, introducing age restrictions and sales and marketing rules, as well as maximum-dosage warning labels.

The proposal is before a select committee and a report is expected on May 19.

Mr Bowden said his organisation had suggested to the committee that similar restrictions should apply to the drink.

"The health select committee is currently considering STANZ proposals to enforce an 18-year age limit on these products and to tighten manufacture and labelling regulations," he said.

VC Sport Science, a Milford, Auckland company, recalled its Ammo product earlier this week.

The drinks, packaged in black cans, were sold at dairies, a fact that the food safety authority said masked the drug as a traditional drink product.

The cans were accessible to children and to unwary adults.

BZP stimulants produce symptoms similar to those found with amphetamine use, according to the health institute.

The drug decreases appetite while causing increased heart rate, breathing and blood pressure.

The Food Safety Authority advises the public not to consume Ammo.