Abstract

Recreational drugs have been with us since time immemorial—opium was probably cultured by prehistoric people in the 6 millennium BC and it has been suggested that some otherwise unexplainable fantastical cave drawings reflect recreational drug use [1]. Much more recently, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stimulated his imagination with cocaine and perhaps opium [2] which likely led to his opium-addicted alter-ego Sherlock Holmes’ exploits; Pete Townshend, of The Who, was probably high on lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), cocaine or cannabinoids when he composed many of his most celebrated works [3]; and sufferers of debilitating and painful diseases, like multiple sclerosis, find solace in an illegal smoke of cannabis [4] in some countries, whereas they might be able to use cannabis legally in other jurisdictions (e.g. California, USA [5]). But, perhaps more importantly, millions of young people throughout the world party on Saturday night under the influence of a new generation of psychoactive drugs including, synthetic cannabinoids (e.g. JHW-018), BZP and methamphetamine. The question is should we legalise the recreational use of these drugs? Legalising them would mean that their safety would be assessed and the cost of policing and prosecuting illicit drug use would be cut. The Netherlands was the first country to legalise a recreational drug, cannabis, with an arguably successful outcome. But, should we go further? Should such drugs and their synthetic derivatives become legal products marketed by a new pharmaceuticals industry? The New Zealand government has decided to legalise psychoactive recreational drugs and has embarked upon the process of setting the requirements for safety evaluation. There is significant controversy about whether it is ethical to use animals to test drugs with an, at best, dubious benefit. This debate is important because it addresses the question when is the use of animals in drug testing ethically acceptable? Indeed, it was conceivable that this debate might derail the New Zealand government’s Psychoactive Substances Bill (2013) [6], and, as a result, the Parliamentary Select Committee has refused to consider submissions on the ethics of animal use in testing recreational drugs. The rationale behind this decision is that ethics committees will decide whether the use of animals to test recreational drugs is appropriate or not. But it is likely that recreational drug manufacturers will hail from parts of the world where ethics are far from most people’s minds – especially when there a significant financial benefit that depends on animal use. Toxicologists have been through a painful and arduous process (mainly in the 1980s) to understand the ethics of animal use in their work. It took significant action by extremist antivivisectionists and reasonable protesters alike to precipitate a rethink of animal use. Now most toxicologists take the use of animals in their work very seriously and will not use animals unless the outcome of their work is important. Defining ‘important’ is difficult, but in the context of drug safety evaluation this would be that the resulting drug has a benefit that balances the sacrifice of animals as part of its development process.

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