High as a Kiwi: Inside the nation saying yes to drugs

Around 30 million people take ecstasy-like drugs every year (Image: Hisham Ibrahim/Getty)

What happens if you stop banning drugs? New Zealand is about to find out – and the rest of the world is watching

"I'VE tried probably 150 different psychoactive chemicals," the man with the Israeli accent tells me over the phone. "So I have a very, er, refined palate."

Known to me simply as Dr Z, the man is a mathematician who used to design sleeping pills for a major pharmaceutical company. The drugs he designs these days are more likely to keep you awake. His most famous creation ismephedrone, or "meow meow", which was briefly the world's most famous legal high.

Drugs like mephedrone usually slip onto the market via shadowy underground networks. Dr Z first tries his creations himself before recruiting willing human guinea pigs from the online "psychonaut" community.

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Fed up with the endless game of cat and mouse between drug designers and the law, New Zealand has decided to set up a regulated market for new recreational drugs. Within weeks, New Zealanders will be living in a society not dissimilar to the anti-prohibitionist ideal, with all kinds of psychoactive substances legally available, quality-controlled and out of the hands of criminal gangs .

The stakes are high. If New Zealand's experiment succeeds, the already crumbling case for prohibition will be further weakened. Governments around the world are watching this and other attempts at legalisation and decriminalisation. They seem increasingly willing to look at alternatives to prohibition – especially if they bring in new tax revenues.

If it fails, however, the case for reform will lie in ruins. And there is plenty of room for failure. One major unknown is whether drug consumption will rise, and if so, what will happen to New Zealand society. Another is the problem of drug combinations. People often take more than one substance at a time: when the market is flooded with numerous novel compounds – plus alcohol – the possibility of toxic combinations is multiplied.

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