Time for a war on legal highs?

There has been an ongoing war on drugs by the government since the 1970s; however, the production and availability of so-called ‘legal highs’ has continued to advance  during this time.

A legal high is any substance that has not yet been identified, analysed and subsequently controlled under The Misuse of Drugs Regulations. Due to the severe penalties for producing and dealing regulated drugs, there has been a shift in recent years to legal highs.

Two charities that are dedicated to raising awareness about legal highs ‒ Angelus and Solve It ‒ have called upon the government to act on the growing problem.

They have published a joint report ‒ Legal Highs: An Action Plan for Change ‒ that sets out how the government should be developing a coordinated effort to raise awareness and reduce drug abuse.

The report follows a conference in June that concluded that the government must take a leading role and put an end to the rising use of legal highs.

Maryon Stewart, the founder of Angelus, said: “We have taken great heart in the response from the conference ‒ the report is testament to an overwhelming desire for public sector and charities alike to address the impending disaster from legal highs; however, equally it begs the question why government departments are not taking the lead they should. Most of the time it is not about finding more resources, simply recognising the problem and being prepared to impact on it. The time to act is now.”

Many legal highs are found to be extremely dangerous and are eventually banned; however, while drug manufacturers and dealers are able to continue to create new chemical variants, lives will continue to be at risk.