On The Nation:

Lisa Owen interviews Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne and Matt Bowden from Stargate International

Matt Bowden says he’s developing a safe legal high to be on the shelves in NZ in two to three years.

Says he plans to crowd-fund the millions needed to pay for safety testing the new product; investors will get at least 30% return on investment.

“It’s crowdsourcing for safety testing, for all the different drugs that people want to see safety tested, because we need to know which ones are safe and which ones aren’t.”

Says his company will run as a not-for-profit and will only licence the products to clinics who will assess all users before giving them legal highs.

Peter Dunne’s response: “I think it’s got a degree of unreality about it at this stage” and he says the timing is “incredibly optimistic”

Minister says the new psychoactive substances law is working, no products are being manufactured or distributed legally in New Zealand, public clamour has died down and “the situation we have at the moment will continue for a considerable period of time”

It’ll be at least 3-5 years – perhaps “many more” – before a testing regime robust enough to prove products are “low risk” can be put in place and no viable alternatives to animal testing on the horizon

Dunne acknowledges however Bowden is “right to make the point which I think was implicit in what he’s saying, that animal testing’s days are numbered generally”

Has no intention of changing existing cannabis laws

Lisa Owen: I’m joined by Peter Dunne. Good morning to you, Minister
Peter Dunne: Hello, Lisa.
While on this programme a year ago, you conceded that you should have perhaps done things differently. Those products were withdrawn, so what’s changed on the ground now?
Well, nothing much has changed. The position that came into effect last May continues. There are no products legally available for sale, there are no products being manufactured or distributed in New Zealand, and it’s interesting that a lot of the public noise and clamour has died down as a consequence. We’re working our way through the implementation of the regulatory regime that was referred to in Nicola’s track, and there are now opportunities for people to apply for licences to manufacture products. As she says, no one has done so to date. And the fact that we are not able to test or use animal testing to be part of the process means that it’s likely to be many, many years before a testing regime that is robust enough to prove the products are low-risk can be put in place. So essentially the situation we have at the moment will continue for a considerable period of time.
Okay, many years exactly? Give us a more specific timeframe, Minister. What do you think? Two to five? Five to 10?
I can’t do that. I can’t do that, but I think it’s somewhere, I would say, in at least the three to five range. I’ve had some suggested advice that it might be longer than that. But that’s because there needs to be, for the point of view of the manufacturers, viable alternatives to animal testing developed, and the specialist advice that I receive constantly at the moment is there are no such viable alternatives on the horizon.
Okay, well, as you say, manufacturers can’t use animal tests, so you set up— there’s a committee set up and you’ve got these new guidelines that are now six months old, so is it even possible at this point? Does the committee think it’s possible at this point to prove a product is of low-risk without testing on animals?
The advice that I receive and have received constantly to that is no, it is not possible. We made the call to remove animal testing because it became clear to me around this time last year that the inclusion of animal testing no longer enjoyed a majority support in Parliament, so it was prudent to withdraw it.
But isn’t that in essence—? It’s a ban, then. If there’s no means to prove that something is low-risk within the rules that you have set, this is prohibition by stealth, isn’t it?
No, it’s not, because whether it be psychoactive substances or cosmetics or ultimately pharmaceuticals, it’s pretty clear now that animal testing is on the way out. Only last week, for instance, Parliament— or the week before, Parliament unanimously voted to prohibit animal testing on cosmetics, so the pressure will go on manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, synthetic highs, et cetera, to develop viable alternatives over a period of years. I just don’t think that’s going to be a static position. But the fact is that from a regulator’s point of view, we need those standards to give the assurance that whether it be pharmaceuticals, cosmetics or synthetic drugs, et cetera, that there is a standard of low-risk being achieved.
So you accept that it’s just a matter of time before these drugs are back?
Well, they’ve never gone away. If you look around the world at the moment, they are escalating at a huge rate. A number of countries have introduced outright bans on substances or products or chemicals, and when I was at the United Nations in Vienna last month at a conference on this matter and spoke to the leading officials there and said to them, ‘So they’ve gone away?’ they all smiled at me wryly and said, ‘No, they’ve gone underground.’ Now, what has happened in New Zealand, because we’ve taken a different approach, is while there has been some underground market, it’s comparatively small. It’s largely a residual stockpiling, and the police largely have that under control. So we’re in a different position from others.
Really, Minister? Really? It’s small? Because you’ve just told us that you don’t think that it’s possible to get one of these products back on the shelves maybe for five to 10 years. That in essence is a ban. People are telling us it has driven this product underground, and there’s a booming black market.
No, there has been some evidence of some underground sales in some areas. The advice that I’ve received that it’s comparatively small; it is largely stockpiled product from prior to the legislation, so it is diminishing. There has been some suggestion of some new manufacture, but that’s been very limited. And as I say, the advice I receive from the police and others is that they have the situation under control.
Well, no, the Drug Foundation tells us there’s also a resurgence in other drugs, like Ecstasy is coming back, they’re seeing more P around, and the City Mission has said that people are huffing glue and solvents and people are using synthetic cannabis, just under the radar.
Well, as I say, the advice that I’ve received is that the ‘under the radar’ aspect of the problem with regard to the synthetics is pretty minimal. There has been some transitioning, but, again, our methamphetamine use is down considerably on what it was four or five years ago as a result of our methamphetamine strategy. Drugs like Ecstasy have never been a prominent part of the drug market in New Zealand. Of course, there’s going to be some transfer, but there’s also huge risk involved in that for people from the point of view of detection.
But, Minister, are you happy that a law that you championed to regulate this industry is perhaps driving people to other harder drugs?
No, I don’t accept that proposition. I think there’s always going to be a mix-and-match, if you like, because people switch around. You see it in the alcohol market. People still want to have homebrew and various other alternatives. So I don’t think it’s as quite as tight a distinction as you draw. I’m happy that the legislation is working as intended. As I say, the introduction of the ban on animal testing was a complication we did not foresee at the time the legislation was being developed, but as you’ve seen, that wave is starting to go right through all other areas where animal testing is involved. And so everyone’s going to have to face up to developing alternatives, and from the New Zealand point of view, whether it be medicines or whether it be synthetic drugs or whatever, there’s got to be a standard achieved, and that is that those products are of low risk.
Okay, well, let’s take the premise that you’ve given us, which is basically these products will come back on to shelves; it’s just a matter of time. When one does come back, or when someone passes that benchmark for the tests, what if there is another huge round of public outrage? What will you do then?
Well, I suspect that the level of testing will mean that any products that come through will be sufficiently benign, that there won’t be that impact, but there is the capacity under the legislation to withdraw products if they are found to be having adverse effects.
The thing is it costs a lot of money. It’s going to cost a lot of money for someone to meet this testing regime. I think some estimates are about $2 million to get it over the line. Is there a prospect that they could pay that money, put the product out there and then you might tweak the law again and they’ll be left with the carpet pulled out from underneath them?
There’s always that prospect, but if the testing regime is sufficiently robust, the product that emerges at the other end should be of low risk, which means that the likelihood of it causing damage, of it causing community concern, et cetera, et cetera, is minimal. If that is not the case, then, as I say, there are powers under the act to act accordingly.
So are you guaranteeing that this law is in good faith and if somebody passes that, the guidelines that are in place now, then that product will go to the market, it will be sold, and unless there are any incidents, they will be allowed to do that? Because they don’t have that faith at the moment.
The proposition has always— the proposition’s always been that we put in place a testing regime that says if you can prove your product is of low risk to end users, we’ll let you sell it under certain regulated conditions. That hasn’t changed. If that test is failed by anyone along the way, then, as I say, there are powers in the act to act to remove those products, and that hasn’t changed either.
Given that you’ve said the big stick in a law-and-order approach hasn’t worked before, what about cannabis? What about natural cannabis? Is there a move? Will you move to try and do something on that – decriminalise?
No, no, that’s a completely separate debate. We are currently reviewing our national drug policy and within that some of the provisions of the Misuse of Drugs Act. But you cannot use, and I’m not going to get involved in using the synthetic cannabis debate as a lever towards the legalisation of the real product. That’s a completely separate issue, and we remain bound by the international drug conventions and the current law remains in place, and I’ve got no intention of changing it.
All right, thank you very much for joining me this morning, Minister.
Thank you.
Lisa Owen: Welcome back. It was Matt Bowden who introduced the legal party drug BZP to New Zealand back in 2000. When that was banned, he switched to synthetic cannabis. It all made him very rich. Nowadays, he runs Stargate International, a company advocating for and developing safer drugs. He joins me now. Good morning, Matt.
Matt Bowden: Good morning.
You have heard what Peter Dunne had to say there. He claims that there is no significant black market as a result of taking these products off the shelves. Do you agree with him?
Well, I think it's the odd thing about— you know, politicians can make laws, but politicians can't make a law that goes against a natural law. They can't make a law against gravity, and they can't make a law against the laws of economics. The laws of supply and demand are still there. There's still a massive consumer demand for these sorts of products, and it's being met currently by the black market, the same as everywhere else on the planet.
What evidence have you got of that?
We hear from retailers around the country that they are seeing people that are moving more towards methamphetamine, and we've also seen from— even from television recently, we've seen tinnie houses sort of selling these sorts of problems. Um...
And how do retailers know that people are moving to meth, though?
I guess they go to buy glass pipes and so on and paraphernalia, plastic bags.
So what about online? Because that's another issue that's been raised. Is it still possible to get these drugs online?
Absolutely, and I don't wanna go into the how exactly it's done, but it's very easy for anybody with a credit card to get hold of, um, large quantities of synthetic drugs, um, across the border without any way of being detected or caught.
So you're telling me it's easy? Because you still—? I mean, it might be easy to order online, but you've got to get it across the border, as you say. Is it easy to get it past Customs?
I don't wanna encourage people to do this, so I don't wanna talk any more about how it's done.
Not how it's done, but you're telling me it's relatively easy?
I think it happens all the time, and that's sort of the global phenomenon that's going on.
Ok,well, what's happened to people like you who were manufacturing legal highs? What are you all doing now?
Most people have... I mean, the government have really sort of cut the throat of the local industry, and so for us, we've found it very, very difficult. I mean, I have a lot of technical staff. We have a lab which costs a lot of money to set up, where we design hundreds and hundreds of different molecules, looking for the optimal molecules which are gonna be safe enough. Um, it's been very difficult, so, uh....
But you still are? You're still researching and developing a product that you think will get past these new rules?
Yeah, I'm passionate about this. I started this when we had a family member died of an Ecstasy death. Another friend of mine commit suicide using a samurai sword on methamphetamine. I got sick of going to funerals when I was a little younger. It's been 17 years now. During that time period, a testament to our safety record, 17 years, tens of millions of occasions, people have chosen to use one of our products, zero of those occasions resulted in a death. Zero lasting injury.
OK, but there's new guidelines now, so you need to meet those guidelines. So just to be clear — you think that you can make a legal high that is not addictive, and it's not gonna be damaging to people's health?
That's right, and if you look at, um— the safety standards are pretty much the same as medicines. There are a lot of medicines out there which have, sort of, broadly similar effects, which do, uh, which are... We're looking for something which is non-addictive, doesn't cause brain damage, is unlikely to cause death and overdose. With BZP, we had people making suicide attempts — taking 40, 50 pills at once. And they weren't dying. Um, and not toxic to any organ in the body. We want drugs that are not gonna cause antisocial behaviours.
Because the thing is, when we told people you were coming on this show this morning, the amount of scepticism around whether you can actually achieve this is huge; through the roof on social media. And they're saying, 'People... You know, surely another company, a huge international pharmaceutical company, if this was possible, they would have done it?'
And they're doing it right now. So we are working with leading academics around the world to develop alternatives to the more dangerous drugs — your methamphetamine, alcohol, heroin. The really dangerous drugs, as well as, um, sociabilisers and, uh, drugs which people can take just to switch out of work mode and into play mode for the weekend, which are safer than alcohol, which kills two to three Kiwis every day.
So let's assume that you can make such a drug for the purpose of this exercise. How long before you can prove that it's not harmful? Because you can't use animal-testing to do that. So how are you going to prove that it's not harmful?
OK, so again, technology is moving very quickly, and it's being pushed along by the trend towards, um, the legislation we developed in NZ. When I said, like, 10, 15 years ago, we put these regulations in place, we'd be leading the world in drug policy, everyone, of course, told me that I was crazy. But that's what happened, and that's what we're doing.
Yeah, but Mr Dunne told us that he thinks that's years away. Could be five to 10 years away. How far away do you think?
So testing starts in silica, which means computer modelling. Lot of the pharmaceutical companies are using computer modelling because there are so much we know. We've tested so many millions of chemicals over the years, so there's a lot we know about what makes it safe, what makes it dangerous. Then it goes to in-vitro testing, so testing—
In a tube?
In a tube. Yep, cell-cultured. And then from there, um, if there's... Uh, overseas companies will continue doing animal-testing. Animal-testing will then presented to ethics committees at universities, and human-testing will carry on. Also, the committee here in NZ, the law says they are allowed to look at animal-testing if they are wanting to, and they're allowed to use it to reject a product. And so there's a binary output, and the process where animal-testing, overseas companies who aren't limited by laws will do animal-testing. They will present it to the committee, and then they will either reject or they'll get a, 'Yes, carry on.'
So you’re doing this stuff in conjunction with overseas people, so you get to the point where you can do human trials, conduct them overseas, bring the information back here and get through the process here. Is that what you’re saying?
I’m a big believer in New Zealand and creating jobs here, so I would go back to the government and the community, and say, ‘Do we want to do this here in New Zealand? Should we do this through our universities, or are you going to send us somewhere else?’
So when do you think you can have a product on the shelves?
I think it should happen within about three years’ time, and then, what I’d like to do— The first misconception people are thinking, ‘are those horrible addictive drugs that left people in the streets coming back?’ Absolutely not. The drugs that come back will be non-addictive. They won’t mess people up. They won’t make people comatose. They won’t cause any brain damage or organ damage. What I’m going to is— I’ve always said we should have clinicians at the point of sale. So I will only licence my products to clinics. I’m going to set up not for profit clinics where someone walks into the door, they will talk to a clinician who will assess whether they are in a space where they are addicted to something, to alcohol or some other drug, whether they are a problem user or a responsible user. If they are a responsible user, they get given a product, and then the money that we’ve made— we’ve invested a lot in addiction-breaking technology, cognitive restoration, abstinence maintenance – things which help addicts get off dangerous drugs and get their brains back together. We want to provide that from our clinicians free of charge to the community, subsidised by the sale of the legal high product.
Well, that seems to be a contradiction, doesn’t it? Because if this thing is perfectly safe, as you tell me it is going to be, why do you need a clinician to dispense it if it’s perfectly safe? Shouldn’t you be able to buy it off the shelf in the supermarket?
That’s a really good question, and what it comes down to is the individual. You probably know people who can use the toxic, lethal drug alcohol in a responsible manner, and you probably also know people who are in trouble with it, and so what we’re saying is let’s have a clinician there. When you’re going to purchase your drug, whether it’s alcohol or something else, we can say, ‘You’ve been in here two or three days in a row now, Lisa. Why don’t we talk about what’s going on in your life? Have you had a relationship breakdown? Has someone died nearby?’ And if you’re just on the verge of moving into problem usage, then let’s have you there in a relationship with a treatment professional who can put you on a better path.
So this, in essence, is a franchise; clinics out in the community.
Not for profit. This is a community asset.
Okay.
We want to build just one in Auckland. The council can tell us where they want it. And if we’ve got the same outcomes performance indicators that the council have, they might want more. We put them around the country, and then when people look at New Zealand, they say this is the way forward. We have a foundation—
This sounds really expensive, really expensive, and we know developing the drug is expensive, so where are you going to get the money from?
Right at the moment I am doing some crowd funding, and so if you go todrugsafetytesting.com and give us your details, if people want to invest in what we’re doing, in the safety testing, then not only are you investing in a better future, but also we will give your money back when the product hits the market.
So you’re basically saying ‘give a little’ to get high?
Give a little so that when you’re children get high, they’re doing it with something that’s not going to kill them.
And what are they going to get out of this? Because you’re saying it’s a business investment, so are you going to pay all this money back? How will it work?
It’s crowdsourcing for safety testing, for all the different drugs that people want to see safety tested, because we need to know which ones are safe and which ones aren’t. And when money comes in—the difference with our crowdsourcing is we’ll give the money back when the products hit the market. And I think it’s very reasonable.
What’s the return on the investment going to be? I’ve had a look at some of your documentation. You’re aiming pretty high.
At least 30%. I think it’s pretty easy. These sorts of products, they make millions and millions of dollars, and I am uncomfortable taking money and living off it in that manner. I actually want to do something else, and I want to set this up so that it’s the community that are having the wealth redistributed within them, because we know 1% of people have got all the wealth, and we need to turn that around.
So, just to be clear, this grand idea, when do you think it’s going to come to fruition? When will someone be able to walk in and buy a product that you have produced?
I think that we’ll have products back through safety testing within two to three years.
All right. I want to bring Peter Dunne back in on the conversation here. Mr Dunne, you can hear there Matt Bowden thinks he’s going to have a product back on the shelves within two to three years. What do you think of that?
Peter Dunne: Well, I’m fascinated by his plan. I think it’s got a degree of unreality about it at this stage. He’s right on one point, though, that the massive level of development is continuing worldwide and this problem is proliferating rather than reducing, which is why we need to move towards a regulated market in New Zealand. But frankly, I think his timings are incredibly optimistic.
Is this what you imagined with your legislation, that people would give a little, as I say, to produce a product to get high on?
No, I didn’t imagine that for one moment, and I think that’s the fanciful side of what he’s talking about. The notion that there were products available that were proven to be low risk, low harm to people and potentially non-addictive as he’s suggesting, that is really the space we want to move into, because then it becomes a matter of public choice as to whether you use them or not. I think, as I say, his time frame is very optimistic. It’s certainly not consistent with the advice that I’m receiving.
But what about the means by which he thinks he’s going to get through your regime, and the testing and the animal testing. Do you think that’s realistic?
Well, I think he’s right to make the point which I think was implicit in what he’s saying, that animal testing’s days are numbered generally, and I acknowledged that in our talk earlier. What the alternatives might be are still being developed worldwide, whether it is computer-based modelling or other forms of testing. They need to meet professional standards. We don’t have answers on those points as of yet, which is why I think his timing is very optimistic.
But, basically, what you’re saying is it’s a pipe dream from what you’re hearing.
Well, I think part of it is. I think there is some reality in what he talks about when he refers to the way in which the product market is developing worldwide, but I think the point about where testing regimes go to generally over the next few years are still very unclear, not just in New Zealand, but elsewhere, and that’s why I think he’s clinging to something that may not come to pass in the time frame he’s talking about.
Thanks, Mr Dunne. If I could come back to you, Mr Bowden. You’re dreaming.
Matt Bowden: Everybody has always told me that everything I set out to achieve is impossible, including that I would get the government to put sensible regulation in place, and that we would take it to the United Nations and we would be well received internationally. But I’m sure Mr Dunne will be able to tell you that’s exactly what’s happened.
All right, well, thanks for joining us this morning, Matt Bowden.
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