Grant Hall: NZ advocacy group the Star Trust. Credit:Radio Live "The possibility of being involved in legitimate drug sales, five or 10 years ago I would have laughed at that," says Brendan in a telephone interview, about half an hour before he is due to start his second focus group. He was trialling synthetic cannabis, consumed through a vaporiser, or e-cigarette. "It was just like being at home really," says Brendan, who is a frequent cannabis smoker. "We just sat around and watched TV and played video games". From August all new psychoactive substances that contain approved ingredients meeting safety standards will be sold in a new, legal market. The rest will be banned.

The response sits in stark contrast to the ever-increasing focus of many countries including Australia on law enforcement. Australians spend more than $7 billion annually on traditional illicit drugs, research suggests. And Tasmanian academics recently estimated that about four entirely new chemical substances, and 10 retail outlets selling them to Australians, are emerging each month. This week the federal government announced snap bans on 19 of these synthetic drugs. They want the highs to actually be legal, and low risk.

Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury said the most effective way to deal with synthetic drugs was that they "be treated as illicit drugs and be subject to law enforcement by proper agencies''. But the synthetic drug market is not like the heritage drug market. A global network of inventors and manufacturers is constantly tweaking the chemical components of their products, creating new, legal, drugs from old, banned ones. Politicians and police are left playing a bizarre game of "whack-a-mole" as they attempt to keep their crackdowns up to date. "New Zealand has been grappling with this issue for a decade," says Ross Bell, the executive director of the New Zealand Drug Foundation. "I think we are a couple of years ahead of everyone and our government is less interested in that merry-go-round." Bell says New Zealand became a world leader in the synthetic drug market by happenstance of geography and size.

"We are smaller, we are much further away, so we are not seen as a major market," he says. "But New Zealanders still like to get high, and we will cook up our own substances". So popular had the drugs become that they were widely sold in corner stores, alongside children's treats, newspapers and milk. Bell says this will all change under the new system. Drugs will be sold only from approved retailers, and the NZ Ministry of Health will determine what is psychoactive, rendering redundant the commonly used tactic of describing a product as bath salts, plant food or incense. He estimates it will cost about $2 million to assess a product for safety - small change for manufacturers already making millions. "One of the big unknowns," Bell says, "but one of the big possibilities, is whether the pharmaceutical industry, which has a big library of products it has tested over the years, will go back through its files and say, 'hey here was this pill we thought would cure cancer and it didn't, but it did make people laugh, so we'll test that'.''

It's a funny position for a public health advocate to be in. Usually the mortal enemy of industry - be it alcohol, tobacco, or fast food - drug advocates are finding themselves working alongside it. What happens when the drug industry grows in size and power? Bell says it's a big risk. "But the regulation we have put in place starts at the tough end," he says. "No marketing, sticking health warnings on them, and having plain packaging. "The kind of battles we have fought with alcohol and tobacco, we won't turn around in five years and find we'll have to fight them again". Grant Hall is the public face of New Zealand's "legal highs". He heads the Star Trust, a non-profit organisation that promotes research and advocacy, and represents between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of the industry. "They don't want to just be called 'legal highs', they want the highs to actually be legal, and low risk," he says.

But there's a lot of work to be done. Hall says most of the products sold in New Zealand are produced by three big companies, but different drugs can be sold under a multitude of different names and brands. He estimates there are currently more than 1000 retailers selling synthetic drugs, a number he expects to shrink to around 100 when new licences are implemented. Mainstreaming the drugs will involve identifying and clearly labelling ingredients, and then deciding which ones are worth taking through to the costly safety testing process. Already he says some synthetic cannabis products (pills and vapours, as the industry does not believe the new system will allow smokable products) are in the testing phase. Which brings us back to our corporate offices in Auckland, where Brendan is smoking synthetic cannabis through an e-cigarette.

"I've found the girls get a lot more giggly than the boys," says Angela McInerney, the research manager at the Star Trust. "The boys just want you to give them more". McInerney has been running twice weekly market research sessions, where hand-picked volunteers are fed dinner and then dosed up with synthetic highs. Her research will probably end up being used to help companies decide which products are worth putting through the safety assessment. McInerney's volunteers must subject themselves to a battery of tests that measure their blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation and temperature. They also answer questions about how they are feeling, and what effect the drugs are having - all in the presence of a paramedic. It sounds like a bit of a buzz-kill.

"We ask them how relaxed they are feeling, how high they feel, how intense it is, and after one hour they are allowed a second dose if they want," she says. The typical physical response she sees involves slightly elevated heart rates in the early stages, which go back down at around the 30-minute mark, she says. "They usually say they are relaxed, more focused. We haven't had anyone say they found it an unenjoyable experience, except for people who say it's not strong enough," McInerney says. Her oldest focus group member has been a 70-year-old man who regularly smoked cannabis but wanted to try the synthetic substance. She says he was a little bit disappointed - a sentiment echoed by Brendan. The director of the drug policy modelling program at the University of NSW, Alison Ritter, says the New Zealand regime is exciting.

"It's a world first," she says. "It's an opportunity to see whether this kind of regime will or won't work." Research that Ritter released this week showed Australia is spending $1.1 billion a year on enforcing drug laws. This compares with $361 million on treatment and a paltry $36 million on harm reduction. She says it's frustrating that despite being tiny to begin with, the share on harm reduction dropped from 3.9 per cent to 2.1 per cent in seven years. "We don't have good evidence that law enforcement works, and we have anecdotal evidence I suppose that it might not work as a policy," she says. "We continue to arrest people and drugs keep coming into Australia and the border, and profits continue to be made." She says the treatment that does get funded tends to be for people with severe substance dependence or withdrawal, in dire need of help.

"Unfortunately the demand is acute, and largely needs are unmet in Australia," she says. Simple things such as training GPs to bring up drug use, or providing ecstasy pill testing kits, could make a big difference. The Australian National Council on Drugs executive director, Gino Vumbaca, says the New Zealand model is likely to push people towards the drugs that have been tested for safety. "You don't see a lot of people making their own spirits and wine, because it is easier to go and buy it," he says. "You know there is a level of safety around it". But Vumbaca says shifting from law enforcement towards harm reduction is politically difficult.

The recent debate in Australia around synthetic drugs has seen politicians stepping over each other with one-upmanship on their "tough-on-drugs" approach. Last weekend Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare announced Australia would soon develop legislation to ban all synthetic drugs. A media release announced the ''onus of proof'' would be reversed, until authorities clear them as safe and legal. Confusingly, it compared the proposed system to both Ireland and New Zealand - despite Ireland taking a very different approach of banning all synthetic drugs with no legalisation of those deemed safe. Fairfax Media understands an expert panel will be commissioned to consider both options. Vumbaca says the NZ model is significant not just because of what it will do, but the questions it will raise about broader drug policy.

Loading "There is no other area of social or health policy [besides drugs] where we say 'well this is what we agreed 30 years ago and we are not even going to consider other options," he says. "People will clearly be able to make the link and argue there are certain other illicit drugs that meet the same safety standards". *not real name