What I’m Doing About It
I have formally asked the Ministry of Health and Simeon Brown to explain how this decision was made, why promised follow-up appears not to have happened, and why I believe the prescription system discriminates against gay and bisexual men.
In This Article You’ll Learn
✓ Why I have formally challenged the Ministry of Health and Medsafe
✓ What I intend to take to the Ombudsman
✓ Why I am making a separate discrimination complaint to the Human Rights Commission
Part 1 of this series explained what amyl actually is. Part 2 looked at what New Zealand did to it. This part is about what I am doing now.
On 3 July 2026, I sent a formal letter to the Ministry of Health and Medsafe challenging both the process used to classify alkyl nitrites as prescription medicines and the system that has been left in place ever since.
I have put two positions directly to the Ministry. First, I believe the classification was made and maintained through a process that did not meet the standard of fair and reasonable public administration we should expect from a government agency. Second, I believe the practical effect of the prescription system discriminates against gay and bisexual men because it places access behind a disclosure barrier that many of the people most affected cannot or will not cross.
Even for someone willing to make that disclosure, the lawful pathway is barely accessible. As far as I have been able to establish, only two pharmacies are currently known to dispense pharmaceutical-grade amyl nitrite ampoules on prescription, and both are in the same city. For people wanting to lawfully import bottled alkyl nitrites for personal use, I have found only one doctor publicly identified as willing to assess patients and provide the prescription required for that importation pathway.
There may be individual doctors or pharmacies I have not been able to identify, but that does not solve the problem. The Ministry has not created or published a clear, practical nationwide pathway telling patients where they can obtain a prescription, who will fulfil it or how lawful access is supposed to work.
I have given the Ministry an opportunity to answer those concerns before I take them further. If the response does not properly address them, I intend to make a complaint to the Ombudsman about the administrative process and a separate complaint to the Human Rights Commission about discrimination.
This Is Not an Argument for No Rules
Let me be clear about what I am not saying. I am not saying alkyl nitrites are completely harmless. They are not.
They can cause headaches, dizziness, irritation and dangerous drops in blood pressure. They must never be combined with Viagra, Cialis or similar erection medications. Swallowing the liquid can cause severe harm. Some compounds, particularly isopropyl nitrite, have also been associated with rare cases of retinal damage.
Those risks deserve honest warnings, reliable manufacturing, child-resistant packaging, compound-specific labels and proper information.
What I am challenging is whether forcing every alkyl nitrite behind a prescription has actually delivered any of those things.
It has not created a properly regulated retail product. It has not produced reliable labels on the bottles most people are using. It has not removed black-market supply. It has not ensured that men know which compound they are inhaling.
Nor has it created a functioning prescription system. More than six years after the classification took effect, lawful domestic supply appears to depend on two known pharmacies in one city dispensing an unapproved pharmaceutical product. The personal-importation pathway appears to depend on finding the one doctor currently known to offer that option.
That is not meaningful nationwide access.
Instead, the classification appears to have removed ordinary legal access while leaving the existing demand untouched. A rule should be judged not only by what it says on paper, but by what it produces in the real world.
The Decision Was Made Despite Acknowledged Gaps
At the Medicines Classification Committee’s 63rd meeting in October 2019, the Committee discussed creating a blanket prescription entry covering all alkyl nitrites.
The minutes record that the Committee was not clear about the risks associated with the substances and was also uncertain whether the LGBTQI community knew that reclassification was being considered. Most importantly, the Committee asked Medsafe to obtain further information about the individual compounds, particularly amyl nitrite.
Despite those acknowledged gaps, it still recommended adding the entire alkyl-nitrite group as prescription medicines. The change was then gazetted on 6 March 2020.
That raises a straightforward question: was the further information the Committee requested ever produced before the decision became law? If it was, I have asked the Ministry to provide it. If it was not, I have asked the Ministry to explain why the classification proceeded without the information the Committee itself considered necessary.
The Meaningful Community Response Came After the Change
The process becomes even harder to defend when the timing of community consultation is considered.
The classification took legal effect on 6 March 2020. Substantive opposition from rainbow organisations and members of the affected community was still being submitted later that month.
A submission dated 19 March 2020 from the then New Zealand AIDS Foundation said the decision had been made without adequate community consultation or a thorough understanding of poppers use in New Zealand. It warned that prescription-only classification would disproportionately affect LGBTQI communities and leave no viable legal alternative.
By the time that feedback was being considered, the change was already in force. The later consultation attracted overwhelming opposition, including a petition signed by more than 700 people.
My question to the Ministry is simple: why was the affected community being asked for its views after the decision had already become law?
Consultation is not meaningful when the public is invited into the room after the decision has effectively been completed.
Promises Were Made After the Decision
At the Committee’s next meeting in July 2020, members acknowledged that community feedback had raised issues that had not been properly understood.
The Committee again said it needed more information. It asked about the development of a black market, the effect of the Australian changes and other consequences of restricting supply. The Chair said she wanted to meet with the affected community and Ministry officials to explore the barriers to obtaining alkyl nitrites through health professionals.
The official conclusion recorded in the minutes was that the Chair and Ministry officials would meet with the sector while further information was obtained from Australia. Those were not vague comments made outside the process. They were recorded undertakings in official committee minutes.
I have asked the Ministry to provide the records showing what happened next. I want to know who officials met with, when those meetings occurred, what was learned about black-market development, access barriers and the Australian experience, and what changes were considered as a result.
I have also asked whether officials ever tested whether ordinary GPs would prescribe alkyl nitrites, whether pharmacies would agree to dispense them, or whether patients could realistically find either. If no engagement or investigation occurred, I have asked the Ministry to confirm that and explain why the recorded undertakings were not completed.
This matters because the access barriers the Committee said it would investigate remain visible today. More than six years later, I have been able to identify only two pharmacies dispensing the pharmaceutical-grade product and one doctor offering the personal-importation prescription pathway.
If the promised investigation into access took place, the current result demands an explanation.
New Zealand Did Not Really Harmonise With Australia
The original discussion was presented as an attempt to harmonise New Zealand’s classifications with Australia.
But Australia did not treat every compound identically.
Its 2019 decision separated the compounds. Amyl nitrite was placed on a pathway allowing pharmacist supply under specified conditions, while isopropyl nitrite and n-propyl nitrite were prohibited because of their particular risk profiles.
Australia’s regulator specifically recognised evidence of serious but rare retinal maculopathy associated with isopropyl nitrite and concluded that there was no justification for prohibiting every alkyl nitrite in the same way.
New Zealand instead created one blanket prescription entry covering the entire group. That means the claimed harmonisation was never really achieved. New Zealand copied the broad group restriction but not Australia’s compound-specific distinctions.
Even more strangely, New Zealand’s lawful personal-importation pathway can still allow a doctor to prescribe isopropyl nitrite by name, the compound Australia specifically prohibited.
Although personal importation exists legally, that does not mean it has been made practically available. At present, I know of only one doctor who provides a pathway for patients seeking the prescription required to lawfully import a product for personal use.
I have asked the Ministry to explain how that result can be described as harmonisation or as an effective system of access.
The System Treats Different Risks as Though They Are the Same
Alkyl nitrites belong to the same chemical family, but they are not one identical substance.
The available evidence does not support pretending that amyl nitrite and isopropyl nitrite carry exactly the same documented risks.
Isopropyl nitrite has the strongest association with poppers maculopathy. Amyl nitrite has a much thinner history of reported retinal harm. No alkyl nitrite can be declared completely risk-free, but that does not justify refusing to distinguish between compounds when the available evidence does distinguish between them.
A defensible regulatory system should identify which compounds present which risks. It should require the contents to be stated honestly and warn users about the compounds associated with greater harm.
It should not respond to uncertainty by treating everything as though it is equally dangerous and then pushing the entire market underground.
Prescription-Only Has Not Created Meaningful Access
Alkyl nitrites remain prescription medicines in New Zealand. The current Medicines Regulations still list the group under prescription medicines.
But classification is not the same as access.
There is still no approved alkyl-nitrite product available through the normal New Zealand medicines system.
One lawful option is an unapproved pharmaceutical-grade form of amyl nitrite supplied in single-use glass ampoules—the original medicinal form of the product. However, as far as I have been able to establish, only two pharmacies are currently known to stock and dispense those ampoules against a valid prescription, and both are located in the same city.
The other lawful option is personal importation. That requires a prescription from a New Zealand doctor identifying the product being imported. Yet I have found only one doctor publicly identified as willing to assess patients and, where clinically appropriate, provide the prescription needed to use that pathway.
That doctor does not personally "allow" the importation—the law provides the pathway—but without a doctor willing to assess the patient and write the necessary prescription, the pathway cannot be used.
This distinction matters.
On paper, New Zealand has two methods of lawful access.
In practice, one appears to be limited to two known pharmacies in one city, while the other appears to depend on locating one known doctor.
There may be other individual providers willing to help, but they are not readily identifiable through any clear information supplied by the Ministry. There is no published national provider list, no straightforward referral process and no ordinary pharmacy product that a patient can expect to have dispensed locally.
A legal pathway that people can discover only through community contacts, specialist organisations or determined personal research is not a functioning national health service.
The system says the product is legally available while making normal access extraordinarily difficult. That is access in theory, not access in practice.
Meanwhile, people who want bottled poppers continue buying products online or through informal supply. Those bottles may be poorly labelled, incorrectly labelled or not labelled with the active compound at all.
The policy has therefore failed to achieve one of the most basic harm-reduction objectives: helping people know what they are using.
Why I Believe the System Discriminates
My discrimination complaint is not based on an accusation that officials deliberately set out to target gay or bisexual men.
Intent is not the central issue.
A policy can appear neutral while creating a serious and unequal barrier for a particular group.
The prescription rule technically applies to everyone. However, alkyl nitrites are used disproportionately by gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men, particularly to make receptive anal sex more comfortable and less painful.
To request a prescription, a man generally has to tell a doctor why he wants it. That can require him to disclose that he has sex with men and then discuss the intimate detail that he wants the product for receptive anal intercourse.
For an openly gay man with a trusted and informed GP, that conversation may be manageable.
For a married bisexual man, a discreet man, someone still questioning his sexuality, someone from a conservative family or culture, or someone who simply does not trust his doctor with that information, it can be an absolute barrier.
Even making that disclosure does not guarantee access.
His usual GP may know nothing about the prescription pathway, may not feel comfortable prescribing an unapproved medicine, may decline to assist with personal importation or may not know where the prescription can be fulfilled.
The man must then locate one of the two pharmacies currently known to dispense the pharmaceutical-grade ampoules or find the one doctor currently known to help patients use the personal-importation pathway. For someone living outside the city where those two pharmacies are located, the barrier is greater again.
The medicine may legally exist behind the doctor's door, but he cannot reach it without making a disclosure he may not be ready or safe to make—and even after making it, he may still be unable to find a provider.
That is why I believe this is more than inconvenience or embarrassment.
The prescription requirement places a sexuality-related disclosure barrier between a predominantly gay and bisexual population and a product intended to address a sexual-health need affecting that population. The extraordinary narrowness of the known supply pathway compounds that disadvantage.
Section 19 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act affirms the right to freedom from discrimination. Sexual orientation is also a prohibited ground of discrimination under section 21 of the Human Rights Act.
My complaint will ask whether maintaining this system—without a practical alternative, without a nationwide provider network and without properly examining its unequal effect—amounts to unlawful discrimination.
The Ombudsman Complaint
The Ombudsman complaint will deal primarily with administration and process. I will ask the Ombudsman to examine whether the Ministry acted fairly and reasonably when the classification was made and in the years it has been maintained.
The complaint will focus on several key issues. These include proceeding despite acknowledged gaps in the evidence, implementing the decision before the substantive community response was considered, failing to show that recorded commitments to community engagement and further research were completed, maintaining a system that has never produced an approved and accessible product, and failing to distinguish between compounds with different documented risks.
It will also address the fact that the lawful pathway, as far as I have been able to establish, depends on two pharmacies in one city for pharmaceutical-grade ampoules and one known doctor for personal importation. I will ask why no clear nationwide pathway or provider information has been published and whether the policy’s effects on access, black-market supply and harm have ever been properly monitored.
Before approaching the Ombudsman, people are generally expected to try to resolve the issue directly with the agency. That is why I first sent a detailed formal complaint to the Ministry and gave it an opportunity to answer.
The Ombudsman can investigate decisions and administrative conduct by government agencies, seek an informal resolution or begin a formal investigation. An investigation can result in findings and recommendations, although the Ombudsman cannot guarantee a particular outcome or simply rewrite the law.
My complaint is not limited to arguing about something that happened in 2020. It concerns the continuing administration of a classification that remains in force, the apparent absence of promised follow-up, the lack of evidence of ongoing monitoring, the extreme narrowness of the known lawful supply pathway and the Ministry’s present response to the issues I have now formally raised.
The Human Rights Commission Complaint
The discrimination issue will be raised separately with Te Kāhui Tika Tangata, the Human Rights Commission.
That complaint will focus on the practical effect of the system on gay and bisexual men, especially men who have not disclosed their sexuality or sexual activity to their doctor.
I will ask the Commission to consider who is most affected by the prescription requirement, what personal disclosure is required to obtain access, whether that disclosure creates a particular disadvantage based on sexual orientation, and whether access through only two known pharmacies and one known personal-importation doctor can reasonably be described as accessible.
The complaint will also ask whether geographical location creates an additional disadvantage, whether the Ministry ever assessed those disadvantages, whether less discriminatory ways of managing the risks were available, and whether the continued absence of a realistic legal product makes the disadvantage unreasonable.
The Commission provides a free and confidential service for complaints about unlawful discrimination. It can provide information, notify a government agency about a policy complaint and, where appropriate, offer dispute resolution.
The Commission itself does not investigate the complaint and make a binding ruling that the law has been breached. If the issue cannot be resolved, a complainant may be able to take the matter to the independent Human Rights Review Tribunal, which can make findings and orders.
I am not claiming the outcome in advance. I am asking for the issue to be properly tested rather than allowing a policy with such an obvious unequal effect to continue without scrutiny.
What I Believe a Better System Would Look Like
My preferred outcome is not the return of completely unregulated bottles with no safety information.
I believe alkyl nitrites should be regulated as an age-restricted R18 consumer product rather than forced into a prescription-medicine model that has failed to produce meaningful access.
A responsible system could require mandatory identification of the active compound, approved manufacturing and purity standards, tamper-resistant and child-resistant packaging, clear inhalation-only instructions, strong warnings against swallowing the liquid, prominent warnings about Viagra, Cialis and similar medications, compound-specific warnings about retinal risks, batch information and supplier accountability, and sales restricted to adults.
That would regulate the product people are actually using.
It would allow honest harm-reduction information to appear on the bottle and let consumers choose a known compound rather than buying mystery liquid from an overseas website.
It would also replace a supposed national access system that currently appears to depend on two pharmacies and one doctor with a transparent pathway available to adults throughout New Zealand.
Most importantly, it would manage the genuine risks without requiring gay and bisexual men to explain their sexuality and receptive sexual activity to a doctor before they can legally obtain it.
Where the Challenge Stands
As of July 2026, I have formally put the Ministry of Health and Medsafe on notice of both the administrative and discrimination concerns.
I have asked for a substantive response within 20 working days. I have also asked the Ministry to explain whether it considers the current pathways genuinely accessible when the only providers I have been able to identify are two pharmacies dispensing the pharmaceutical product and one doctor assisting with prescriptions for personal importation.
If the Ministry knows of a broader functioning network, it should identify it. If the Ministry can produce records showing that the missing evidence was obtained, the promised engagement occurred, the policy’s effects were monitored, meaningful nationwide access was established and the discrimination concern was properly considered, then those records should be provided.
If it cannot, the next steps are clear. The administrative failures will be taken to the Ombudsman, and the discriminatory effect will be raised with the Human Rights Commission.
These are two different complaints because they ask two different questions. The Ombudsman complaint asks whether this was handled fairly, reasonably and properly. The discrimination complaint asks whether the system places gay and bisexual men at a particular disadvantage because of their sexual orientation.
Both questions deserve answers.
Why I Am Doing This
I did not begin researching amyl because I planned to challenge the Ministry of Health.
I began because I wanted to understand what was in the bottles, why different products felt different and what the genuine risks were. But the deeper I went, the less defensible the New Zealand position appeared.
The official minutes contained uncertainty. The community was consulted too late. Further information was requested. Engagement was promised. No approved product emerged. The restriction remained.
At the same time, the men most affected were left with a choice between disclosing deeply personal information to a doctor, trying to find one of two known pharmacies or the one known personal-importation doctor, or continuing to buy unregulated products underground.
That is not good drug policy. It is not good sexual-health policy. In my view, it is not fair treatment of gay and bisexual men.
This challenge is not about demanding that the Government declare amyl safe. It is about demanding that the Government regulate it honestly, distinguish between the compounds, confront the real-world consequences of its decision and answer to the community that has carried those consequences for more than six years.
References
- Darren Bird, Alkyl Nitrites: Process Failure and Discrimination Concerns—Prior to Ombudsman and Human Rights Commission Complaints, formal correspondence dated 3 July 2026.
- Medicines Classification Committee, Minutes of the 63rd Meeting, 10 October 2019.
- Medicines Classification Committee, Minutes of the 64th Meeting, 9 July 2020.
- Medsafe, New Zealand Gazette Notices Relating to Classification, including the 6 March 2020 prescription classification of alkyl nitrites.
- Crossin, Whelan, Hughes and Birks Ang, A Policy Analysis of How Alkyl Nitrites Became Prescription-Only in Aotearoa New Zealand, International Journal of Drug Policy.
- Office of the Ombudsman, How to Make a Complaint.
- Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission, Making a Complaint and How We Can Help.
- New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, section 19, and Human Rights Act 1993, section 21.