A critical analysis of the implementation of a legal regulated market for new psychoactive substances ("legal highs") in New Zealand.

BACKGROUND: In July 2013 New Zealand passed the Psychoactive Substances Act (PSA) to establish the world's first regulated legal market for new psychoactive substances (NPS) ("legal highs").

AIM: To critically analyse the implementation of the PSA.

METHODS: Synthesis of findings from interviews with 30 key informants (i.e. politicians, civil servants, legal high industry actors, toxicologists, NGO representatives and drug policy academics), analysis of relevant laws and policy documents, and a review of academic and grey literature on the PSA.

FINDINGS: Key challenges experienced during the implementation of the PSA included the harmfulness of interim approved products, the slowness in withdrawing products which caused adverse effects, enforcing retail restrictions, price competition by retailers, judicial challenges by the "legal high" industry, and growing opposition to the regime from local communities and key stakeholders (including local councils). The PSA lacks a tax on products and restrictions on retail opening hours which likely contributed to the problems above. The implementation of the PSA also appeared to suffer from a rushed legislative process and resource constraints on the regulatory agency which led to delays in the development of the full regulatory framework, including the product testing requirements, and issues with enforcing retail regulation, such as the minimum age of purchase. The decline in public support for the PSA regime reflected problems with communicating the aims of the policy to the general public.

CONCLUSIONS: The troubled implementation of the PSA underlines a number of important lessons for consideration when developing a regulated legal drug market, including advanced development of regulatory systems, ensuring the sale of low risk products, adequately resourcing regulatory agencies and related enforcement activity, detailed regulation of retail outlets, establishing price controls, and ongoing engagement with stakeholders and the general public.