Getting alcosynths and chaperones to market will not be easy. Licensing such drugs could take between three and five years, Nutt says – if they pass the UK’s stringent drugs laws at all. He has also courted controversy by working with a chemist, known as Dr Z, who was behind the creation of a mephedrone, also known as “miaow miaow”. That drug that was connected to a number of deaths in the UK last year and was subsequently banned.