ABSTRACT
Over the past 15 years, the New Zealand government has made two attempts at regulating legal access to recreational drugs containing new psychoactive substances (NPS, also known as “legal highs”). Between 2005 and 2008, legal sale of party pills containing benzylpiperazines (BZP) was allowed under the “Restricted Substances Regime” included in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. Secondly, between 2013 and 2014, a regulated legal market for recreational products containing largely synthetic cannabinoids was established under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013. These legal markets for BZP and synthetic cannabinoid products both suffered from insufficient regulation of pricing, availability, product safety and industry influence. They also appeared to suffer from limited planning and stakeholder engagement. Both regimes failed to provide enduring solutions. In contrast, the 2014 amendment to the Psychoactive Substances Act imposed a prohibitively high bar for approval of any recreational “legal high” product, effectively ending the legal market for NPS. This chapter analyses the under- and over-regulation of the “legal high” market in New Zealand and discusses implications for the emerging legal regimes for recreational cannabis. The many issues experienced with attempts to regulate “legal highs” in New Zealand serve as a case study for how not to legalize cannabis.
