Prohibition wins

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key has ruled out any animal testing on legal high products.

Parliament will pass legislation this week to pull all legal high products from shop shelves until they can be proved to be safe.

Mr Key had previously ruled out recreational drug testing on all animals except rats, he told Newstalk ZB.

“The advice I’ve had from the Health Department over the weekend, and having had discussions with Peter Dunne, is that they don’t believe that that’s safe.

“They say it has to be on two species, not one, so what I’ve said is, ‘Okay, well if that’s what you believe, then it’s all out’.” 

Mr Key said if the product could not be tested other than with animals, then it failed to meet the testing regime and would not be produced.

Mr Key told TVNZ’s Breakfast show the Health Department had told him and Mr Dunne that to ensure a product was safe, it needed to be tested on rats and rabbits.

So previously legal recreational drugs will be effectively banned because rabbits are cute and rats are not.

This means that all these products will not effectively be permanently banned, because they will have no way of proving they are safe. This will help the black market, but prohibition is rarely successful or desirable.