One of several drug delivery apparati in Queenstown

Queenstown is the most convincing proof that governments can profit from the legalization of drugs. This is, after all, the city that deals the world’s most expensive narcotic. Walk around its compact downtown and you’ll see hundreds of addicts, just biding time until their next fix, for which they’ll pay hundreds of dollars.

The drug dealers are registered companies that are taxed and subject to stringent safety standards. There are very few deaths and virtually no violent crime caused by the drug. Because the drug is so expensive and the city so far from major world cities, users tend to come from higher income brackets. And they normally come for a fix or two, then leave.

It’s impossible for someone to steal the drug and deal it himself in the back market. The barriers to entry for new dealers are so high that the number of dealers – and prices – remains steady. This stability also ensures there are no turf wars between dealers.

Drug users await their next fix at the Queenstown harbour

The price of the drug is exorbitantly high because the cost of extraction is immense. Dealers must build pricey and long-term structures, buy specialized equipment, and hire well-trained staff to deliver it.

Some of those costs may include: passenger boats powered by jet engines, cabins suspended by steel cables over a deep crevice, cable cars that transport users to said cabins, special elastic ropes that are tied to users’ feet, robotic winches that bring users back to safety after a drug administration, transport buses, drivers, cameras and editing computers to give users a visual record of their experience.

Fixes can last anywhere from 20 seconds to a full day. Shorter trips are usually more intense.

Interestingly, the drug cannot be manufactured or purified from any other substance. The drug resides within certain glands inside the users themselves, and requires all these complex structures to extract it.

This drug is called adrenalin.

A pedestrian walks past one of several drug dealing stores in Queenstown