No, Poppers Won’t Be Banned In Australia, But There’s A Catch
Let's get to the bottom of this.
Six months after Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) proposed that poppers should be illegal to use, sell or possess, they’ve changed their mind — but there are a couple of catches.
For a quick refresher, poppers (also widely called amyl, though that actually refers to a specific type of nitrate) are an alkyl nitrate contained in a small, pocketable bottle. Inhaling the fumes from the bottle gives you a tingly, euphoric head-rush, which means they’re pretty common across clubs and dance floors.
In addition to the high, they’re also a muscle relaxant, meaning they’re used to make anal sex a little easier. Currently, poppers are sold in adult shops and sex-on premises venues, but they’re usually labelled as leather or VHS cleaners. It’s currently technically illegal to huff these bottles — and that won’t change.
The TGA proposed the ban for a few reasons, including cardiovascular harm, eye damage, and the possibility of children swallowing the “sweet-smelling” liquid. In their original proposal, they argued the bad outweighed the good, saying poppers held “little to no therapeutic use”. Gay activists and sexual health experts alike disagreed.
Poppers have been widely used to aid anal sex in the LGBTIQ community since the ’70s, and while the ban wouldn’t just affect men who have sex with men, it also (accidentally or not) would disproportionately impact their lives.
As a result, The Star Observer called the ban a “war on bottoms”; a petition circulated online, gaining 5,000 signatures; and sexual health organisations such as the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations recommended the ban not take place. But it’s not all good news.
Ch-Ch-Changes
Actually, the TGA has made one ban. A specific chemical used in some poppers — sopropyl nitrite — has been outlawed due to its links to eye damage.
Fear not, as there are still a variety of nitrites that poppers can be made from. That’s exactly why the TGA stepped in — because poppers are currently unregulated, and vary in quality.
Recipes and ingredients don’t follow a formula — and while some brands, such as Rush, are safer to use, that information wasn’t readily available to consumers before the TGA’s own testing.
So what are the results? **Drumroll** One of the safer nitrites, isobutyl nitrite, was the major ingredient in all the products the TGA tested. The purity was quite high as well, ranging from 68-77%. If you’re curious, Rush wins the race as the product with the highest purity ?
— Joshua Badge (@joshuabadge) June 5, 2019
With this in mind, the report argues that “it is not in the interest of public health to have alkyl nitrites unregulated such that they are freely available at adult only stores and for general sale”.
Given their importance LGBTIQ sexual health, the TGA has ruled that poppers should be available to the public, but only through a “qualified health practitioner” who can provide education on safe use.
As they technically already were, they’ll be available for therapeutic use via medical prescription. But the big change is that amyl nitrates — a particular type of poppers — will be available at pharmacies without need for prescription.
As part of that ‘education’, pharmacists will need to ‘intervene’ before handing it out, meaning they’ll need to ensure the person won’t misuse the amyl/is using it for therapeutic purposes.
There are a couple of awkward issues here. Prescription or not, this essentially outs patients as men who have sex with men to both their GPs and their pharmacists.
As Joshua Badge detailed for Junkee recently, describing why you need poppers in a public pharmacy to go have some hot anal sex is, uh, awkward at best. And at worst, it’s a situation ripe for discrimination and harassment, even by other members of the public in the pharmacy.
And while it might prove a non-issue in Darlinghurst or Daylesford, where pharmacists are conscious of queer sexual health issues, it could be much stickier in suburban and regional areas.
While the TGA’s announcement says that pharmacy-ready amyl for therapeutic uses will be available in 2020, it’s uncertain how it’ll be stocked or if many pharmacists will readily provide the product.
When Badge called around during his quest, no pharmaceutical company/practice was willing or able to make amyl. Nor were they seemingly aware of how to do so, from the basic level of sourcing ingredients to having the (costly) tech to do so.
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.
Pragmatically, poppers are best sold as they are now, in sex shops and saunas, often late at night. But under the TGAs regulations, only pharmacists can issue them wth a little lecture.
Whether these popper sellers will be regulated more aggressively is also unclear. But if they are, it’ll restrict access to poppers to those who are willing/able to deal with a long-winded, potentially judgemental and overall un-sexy process.
And who has the patience — or the time — when you’re just trying to get laid?
Read the TGA’s ruling here.
Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and co-host of Sleepless In Sydney on FBi Radio. Follow him on Twitter.