The head of the organisation that oversees animal testing would rather legal highs be completely banned than tested on animals.
Labour has proposed an amendment to the Psychoactive Substances Act to rule out testing the drugs on animals, while National wants testing restricted to rodents.
The National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee would have to decide the benefit of testing legal highs outweighs the harm done to animals before experiments could be done.
Independent chair Virginia Williams said, personally, she would rather see the drugs banned than be tested on animals.
