Scottish police lead crackdown on legal highs

Police in Scotland have led nationwide raids to implement a crackdown on the sale of legal high drugs.

More than 70 police officers were involved in the raid, which focussed on three main shops in Edinburgh. The unprecedented swoop led to the seizing of legal high drugs worth in the region of £60,000.

The police took possession of 3,000 sachets of the psychoactive drugs, which had been labelled as plant food and bore a warning that they were not fit for human consumption. This labelling meant that the drugs were being legally offered for sale. The police targeted almost 60 more stores across the country.

The operation’s lead, Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Houston, said the unclear legal status of the drugs made their control a challenge for police.

He explained: ‘It’s something that we monitor and legal highs are seized as part of normal day-to-day policing. But this [operation] is a large-scale opportunity to get other agencies involved in assisting us in taking that forward.”

DCI Houston also said that legal highs are not always used in isolation and are often taken by people also using ecstasy and other controlled drugs, which makes it difficult to determine how many deaths are caused by the use of legal highs alone.

The raids followed hot on the heels of a two-week awareness campaign aimed at highlighting the dangers of new psychoactive substances (NPS) to teenagers, parents, teachers, and young professionals in the 25-35 age group.