Call for action on 'legal high' drugs
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Government drug advisers have today called for tighter regulation of ‘legal highs’ – recreational drugs sold legally due to loopholes in the law. In a new report the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has published details of how drugs such as ‘meow meow’ (mephedrone), which was banned last year, have been openly sold over the Internet under the guise of being ‘plant food’ or ‘research chemicals’.
The report also highlighted the false perception that just because a drug is technically legal it must be safe, pointing out that there have been at least 42 deaths associated with the use of mephedrone, and dozens more where its use has been suspected.
While the mephedrone family of drugs has now been banned, the ACMD said those manufacturing legal highs are increasingly tweaking the chemical formulas of banned legal highs to bypass bans on specific substances. In response, it suggested that legislation should be used to make it illegal to produce substances with similar effec...
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