A LIST of all the most prolific drug manufacturers and dealers in the land, complete with their full names and addresses, is something that most police forces would dearly love to get their hands on. In New Zealand, exactly such a list has just been drawn up, without the police having to lift a finger. As we reported a couple of weeks ago, New Zealand recently passed a law to legalise and regulate synthetic recreational drugs, under a system similar to that which is used to license medicines. The licensing regime is due to get under way later this year; until then, companies that are already making and selling “legal highs” (that is, synthetic drugs that the government hasn’t yet got around to banning) have the opportunity to apply for an interim licence to carry on their business. The health ministry, which is overseeing the new regime, has now published lists of the manufacturers and retailers that have applied for such licences. The documents give a fascinating insight into a normally murky business.

First have a look at the list of substances that are under consideration for interim approval. Each has a trade name: some, such as “Blueberry Crush” and “Jungle Juice”, sound rather appealing (just the thing for a fraught Wednesday afternoon putting the finishing touches to a weekly current-affairs journal, perhaps). Others, such as “Fu_kd up” and “POW” sound less benign. But of course names can be misleading. That is why alongside the exotic brand names are the active ingredients, spelled out in chemists’ jargon of strings of letters and numbers, along with some more well-known chemicals, including caffeine. With this information is the concentration of the active ingredient in each dose.

More intriguing still is the list of people and companies that have applied for interim licences to manufacture and sell drugs, as well as import and export them. Many of the would-be retailers are “adult shops”; others, such as “Pillz & Thrillz”, sound as if they specialise in the business of getting high. Perhaps most interesting are the 13 companies that have applied for licences to manufacture drugs. Some have given addresses that seem to be ordinary houses. Others have registered addresses in smart business parks—have a look on Google’s Street View and it seems that some of them sit alongside well-known companies from more pedestrian walks of life.

Anywhere else in the world such a roll-call of drug makers and dealers would be unthinkable. Many people may be horrified that peddlers of mind-addling concoctions are listed on the health ministry’s website as if they were manufacturers of medicines. But the lists make clear some of the advantages of bringing the business into the daylight. Kiwi consumers can now see exactly what they are getting when they pop a dose of “illusion Connoisseur” (the active ingredient is PB22-5F, in a concentration of 45mg per gram). If they find it too strong they can try the “illusion Massif”, which has the same active ingredient in a slightly lower dosage. Contrast this with the unregulated world of illegal drugs, where a pill could be anything from mild to meltdown-inducing, with no way for the consumer to know until it is too late.