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The man who helped kick start the craze for legal highs says he has found a way to get around the new ban and all you need is a coffee machine.

Dr Zee created dozen of legal highs by altering the chemical structure of existing psychoactive drugs which were then sold in the UK through headshops.

New legislation which comes into force tomorrow will outlaw their sale but the scientist says he has created a drug which can be sold legally and then 'activated' using a customised domestic electric coffee machine.

The machine would then dispense a gram of powered drug rather than a cup of coffee.

He has nicknamed the machine the "Methspresso" and hopes it will soon be widely available.

He made the claims in a new BBC documentary due to be screened tonight which focuses on the trade in synthetic drugs which is about to become illegal.

Legal highs are chemically engineered products which because they are not marketed as for human consumption have escaped regulation.

Up until now they have been sold in so-called "head shops" labelled "not for human consumption" even though people regularly take them to induce euphoria or a "high" .

Legal highs have been sold under names like Devils Dandruff Derailed, Psycho Strawberry, Train Wreck, Kronic, Low Rider, Green Candy, Widow, Head Trip and Blueberry Cush.

(Image: BBC)

Dr Zee was behind the popularity of Mephedrone a stimulant drug first synthesized in 1929, but which did not become known to the wider public until it was rediscovered in 2003.

The scientist is an Israeli chemist based in Amsterdam who believes that people who "want to get high" should have alternatives to illegal drugs or alcohol.

He said: "I create drugs, I create new drugs, and have been fighting for people to have a legal option to get high.

"Not for human consumption translates into 'this is a good drug you should take it'.

"It shouldn't be that the only way to have break is to have a Scotch.

"I was inventing them (legal highs) at the rate of about one a week, faster than they could legislate."

(Image: BBC)

At first the UK Government tried banning individual drugs but could not keep pace in a market where scientists like Dr Zee were able to alter the molecular structure slightly and produce a different drug which had the same effect as the one outlawed.

Instead a law - the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 - is being introduced tomorrow to ban all drugs not already caught by existing legislation.

However Dr Zee told the BBC he as been working for several months on a way around the ban.

He said: "I have an idea which could mean the head shops can stay open, hope springs eternal.

"I have made an item which is not psychoactive which means it can be imported and sold then reverse-converted into a new psychoactive substance, at home.

"I've actually tested this stuff on myself quite few times, it is legal because it is not psychoactive.

(Image: BBC)

"It becomes psychoactive by heating it up in hydrochloric acid for six hours."

He said the resulting liquid can then easily be cosmetically changed into powder using the components found in a coffee machine.

He said: "All you have to do is go to head shop buy your capsules, load them up into the machine.

"Instead of a cappuccino coming out what I get is a gram of powdered psychoactive substance which is allowed for posession.

"I put it in a little baggy, go to a club and have a great time, and get on with your life.

"When it's ready it might be the 'Methspresso machine' and could be a new begining."

The Last Days of Legal Highs is on BBC Three now.