Under the regime proposed by Mr Dunne there is, however, no rational reason for continuing to do this. If it is to be fair and reasonable, the safety threshold must encompass all recreational drugs.
Health professionals are right when they suggest that allowing the sale of alcohol while ruling out less damaging legal highs would be farcical. If anything, this would imply that a stricter safety threshold should be applied to the content of alcohol. As the limited consumption of low-alcohol beer shows, that is not something many people would welcome.
The physical and mental damage caused by party drugs increasingly alarmed those in the health sector before Mr Dunne finally acted last year to halt the uncontrolled sale of untested products. Hospital emergency departments were reporting symptoms far more serious than the usual side-effects of nausea, lack of appetite and dehydration.
The associate minister's response quite rightly puts the onus of safety on manufacturers. They will pay up to $2 million to have their substance proved "low risk" in clinical trials that could take up to two years. They are also likely to face advertising and sales restrictions similar to those on liquor. If the two recreational drugs are to be linked in that way, it becomes even odder not to align their safety thresholds.
The Drug Foundation's executive director, Ross Bell, says that, despite the inconsistency in the Ministry of Health's proposed approach, political realities are likely to rule out a "one-size-fits-all" drug policy. That would be unfortunate, especially in the message it would send to young people.
The Government has shown much initiative and intelligence in opting to control the legal-high industry, rather than the easier option of prohibition. It would ruin much of that good work if it ruled that party pills and synthetic cannabis products must jump a higher hurdle than alcohol.
