Dr Geoff Noller said drug policy should be taken out of the hands of politicians and treated like the social and cultural issue it was.
Dr Noller is a medical anthropologist and consultant who provided a literature review and assessment of MDMA, or ecstasy, for the Ministry of Health in 2009, and wrote a report last year on synthetic cannabinoid use.
He wrote in support of Wellington emergency medicine doctor Paul Quigley's call last week for pure MDMA to be considered for sale.
Dr Quigley said new drugs in pills sold as ecstasy were ''outright dangerous''.
People were coming to hospital hallucinating and delirious with high blood pressure, needing to be held down by four or five security guards.
The drugs changed rapidly, making it difficult for police and Customs to stop them from getting into the country, but controlling a substance such as MDMA could discourage people from using less safe options.
The Psychoactive Substances Act had the potential to decide whether it was safe, Dr Quigley said.
Dr Noller said Dr Quigley's idea deserved consideration.
While MDMA, like all drugs, could be harmful, people buying ecstasy pills had no way of knowing if it was MDMA or a more harmful drug.
Present policy banned drugs that were less harmful, and meant more harmful drugs were taking their place.
''If you have a policy that reduces availability and use, but increases harm, then you are not involving yourself in harm minimisation,'' Dr Noller said.
Selling MDMA would be an issue, with the sort of outlets that sold synthetic cannabis sometimes good, but there were others who did not care.
Dr Noller said there were good regulations in place, but they were not enforced.
Possibilities included the sort of oversight alcohol outlets had, with regulations and ''stings'', such as those used for underage drinking.
''It's all well and good to have a process, but it must be managed.''
But Dr Noller said he had no confidence politicians could get such a process in place - and that was why a national debate on the issue was needed.
Any politician who suggested a change in laws was labelled soft on drugs, meaning ''they cannot bring themselves even to look closely at the evidence''.
''There's no way the current crop of politicians are going to go anywhere near this.
''What we really need to do is decouple drug policy from the political process.
''What we need is a national drug summit.''
That could take the form of a hui, he said.
The summit would need New Zealanders to ''thrash it out'', and that included everyone from drug users to police, drug treatment services, and people vehemently opposed to any change.
Dr Noller said drug use was a social, or cultural issue.
''New Zealanders love their drugs - you only have to look at the booze culture to see that as well.''
That was ''very much'' the case in Dunedin.
