Drug deaths escalating due to legal highs

The number of people dying from drug taking has increased eightfold during a three-year period, with the main reason for such a surge being the availability of legal highs.

New figures released by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) show that in 2009 just 12 people died after taking legal high drugs; by 2012, this number had risen to 97. The CSJ is now calling on the government to grant police greater powers in the closing of shops that sell the substances.

According to the CSJ, legal highs are used more widely in the UK than in any other country in Europe. The UK has seen an increase of 216% over the last five years in the number of people seeking treatment for legal high use.

Christian Guy, director of the CSJ, said: “This is yet another wake-up call to the dangers of so-called ‘legal highs’. Legal highs are destroying lives ‒ it is time to get tough on those making a living out of selling them. The UK is already the addicted man of Europe with some of the worst rates of heroin, crack and alcohol abuse ‒ tackling legal highs needs to be a priority.

The CSJ would like the government to implement a ban on all legal high drugs, similar to the legislation enacted in Northern Ireland in 2010. This law resulted in the number of head shops ‒ the name given to shops selling legal highs ‒ falling from in excess of 100 to fewer than 10.