Crime Solicitors

Government plans to ban all legal highs have raised concerns among those who sell legal highs that the industry will be pushed underground and will continue to operate.

Plans to ban legal highs were outlined in the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday (27/05/15) and would outlaw any drugs or substances which are “mind altering”.

Dealers could face up to seven years in jail if they are convicted of selling so-called legal highs once they have been banned. However, those found with legal highs for personal use only will not face charges.

Previously, the government has banned each new substance that came to market. Under the coalition government, up to 350 legal highs were banned.

The new proposals would make illegal drugs such as laughing gas – nitrous oxide – which was commonly used as an anaesthetic and produces feelings of light-headedness.

Laughing gas is also known as hippie crack. Nitrous oxide works by reducing oxygen in the brain, resulting in hallucinations in some people, as well as loss of unconsciousness, an inability to control movement and even brain damage or death. Nitrous oxide is also present in aerosols, which have in the past caused death among those who inhale from empty aerosol cans to get high. Laughing gas is commonly sold on the street in balloons or small canisters – and often outside clubs or bars.

Legal highs are usually sold in outlets known as “headshops” – and most are manufactured in China and imported.

Owners of headshops claim that banning legal highs will just force the dealers off the high street and into the black market, making regulation more difficult and raising the risk of people misusing the drugs or being sold contaminated drugs.

The government proposals are so far reaching that other substances considered stimulants –such as alcohol, tobacco, medications and even foodstuffs – will have to be given an exemption from the law; and any new recreational drug identified as having a psychoactive effect will be banned.

The new law banning legal highs will target the production, distribution, sale and supply of any new “legal highs” in the UK.

The Misuse of Drugs Act will continue to regulate controlled drugs.

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