The growing market for new psychoactive substances (so-called "legal highs") is a headache for politicians all over the world. Large quantities of formerly unknown drugs are shipped from Chinese and Indian factories to urban centers, where smart online distributors market them to young people as cheap and legal substitutes for currently illegal drugs. New Zealand, a country far from drug trafficking routes, has had to face this challenge much earlier than other developed nations. Its government first responded to this challenge in the good old prohibitionist way: banning as many new substances as possible, as fast as possible. There was only one problem with this approach: it didn't work. As soon as a substance was banned, a new substitute replaced it in the market, with a slightly different molecular structure and similar psychoactive properties. In 2013, policy makers introduced a new law designed to create a legal, regulated market for certain new drugs – as long as distributors could provide clinical evidence that the drugs pose a low risk to public health.

When we visited New Zealand to make the film A Foot in the Door, about this pioneering policy, some retail outlets had already been licensed by the government to sell some approved substances, even before the implementation of the risk assessment regulation. A few days after we finished editing our movie, Minister Peter Dunne announced that the government would remove currently approved legal highs from shelves until they could be proven to be low risk. The media presented it as the government performing a U-turn on its drug policy. Actually, the policy framework has not yet been abandoned, the risk assessment regime is still in place, and distributors still have the opportunity to prove that their products are low risk. What is behind the unexpected decision of the government is not scientific evidence, but rather the tabloid media, with its potential to frighten voters during the upcoming elections. Now it's up to the next government to determine the fate of the Psychoactive Substances Act.

Video: Istvan Gabor Takács and Peter Sarosi