A ban on 'legal' highs, good!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32919712

Theyv’e been causing mayhem in our prisons for a while now, I’ve seen loads of prisoners have very adverse effects, often with the need for paramedics/ambulance attendance. (not just in prisons either) Just hope this has some impact.

I too look forward to the day when so-called “legal highs” are as rare as cannabis.

I look forward to the day when cannabis is legalised and easily available.

Are they banning alcohol then?

I too look forward to the day when so-called “legal highs” are as rare as cannabis.

Cannabis… rare?!

Do you live in the Scottish Highlands??

Cannabis… rare?!

I think that was his point.

Wouldn’t want to be framing that legislation.

Cannabis… rare?!

Sarcasm never comes across in print. Which I love.

Far too many of the kids at my school are taking legal highs,I would suggest they are easier to get hold of than E’s(still and just)

Ban everything. Don’t go anywhere. Do as you’re told. Shut up. Sit down. Be quiet.

We know what’s best for you.

excellent. blanket ban.

steer well clear of those synthetic cannabinoids. a month’s supply for recreational use (was the blueberry flavour one) put a friend off work for several months and needing the services of a shrink. can’t have anything blueberry flavour at all now since it triggers something psychological. probably about a year to get back to normal after trying out a new supply after the man let him down.

the real thing is far safer.

Jesus is my high.

Coffee, cigarettes, cough sirup etc etc etc? So these are fine and other stuff not ? Really?
What would you label as a legal high?

The whole legal highs thing was a bit of a double edged sword..
On the one hand, the stuff seemed very moreish and it was quite comforting to know that the scrotiest scrotes could always be found queuing outside the local smart shop..

On the other hand, it was messing up nice kids, the drug dealers were suffering financial ruin and raves were getting pretty weird.. I’ll be interested to see what effect a return to wholesome free range illegal drugs has on society

I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ll continue to make nitrous oxide legal for whipping cream and making cars go faster, while preventing anyone from inhaling it.

I’m increasingly smelling skunk coming out of the windows of economy hatches as they pass me on my evening rides in the country. I don’t care a dman what people do in their own homes but I do care if they drive while smoking.

It was clearly overdue, people have been buying and taking any old random chemicals of unknown quality, strength or provenance, and causing untold damage.

At the same time, what’s clearly needed is a quantifiable source for recreational drugs that are inherently as safe as existing pharmaceuticals, which does not fund criminality. Legalise E and pot and all this bath salts crap goes away!

I agree with ninfan. Prohibition is ridiculous. All it does is affect quality and leads to these legal high.

Drugs aren’t going away.

I don’t care a dman what people do in their own homes but I do care if they drive while smoking.

Same issue as drink driving, just deal with it the same way. I actually think the criminalisation of drugs promotes drug-driving. Users probably use the rationale that since they’re doing something illegal anyway, breaking one more law isn’t going to make a lot of difference.

Are they going to ban glue and other solvents too?

Does a decent uplift session, say Morzine or Les Gets, count as a legal high?

We need to address this adrenaline junky problem.

And my 4 year old seems to get high just before bedtime. Do I ban bedtime or ban sleepiness?

Seriously though, how are you going to define and catagorise legal highs? And won’t they be illegal highs anyway?

I understand the sentiment, but I doubt it’s workable.

Seems sensible to me I’ve had countless cases of various effects from short term use of ‘spice’ and other versions. Some of which would have been fatal if they hadn’t received treatment quick enough.

Seriously though, how are you going to define and catagorise legal highs?

According to the OP’s link : “any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect”. Alcohol, tobacco and caffeine will be excluded.

It seems very straightforward to me

THIS

We cannot stop folk doing drugs so lets make sure they do it safely [ most of the banned ones are at least as safe as fags and alcohol – ok that is setting the bar pretty low]

the other issue is that every school in the country will have a drug dealer as they are illegal and criminals tend to have poor morals. Legalising them means we can control the supply

Personally I would legalise/decriminalise to get young people away from super strength skunk as well as the risk of psychotic episodes seem to be linked to both strength and age at which you start.

We need to protect folk banning does nothing in this respect.

I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ll continue to make nitrous oxide legal for whipping cream and making cars go faster, while preventing anyone from inhaling it.

Ignore the nitrous for cars (and anything else that’s not food or medical grade). It’s got stuff in it that makes you chunder.

Makes handy rocket propellent (well oxidiser). Sparklet bulbs cost peanuts.

Natty stuff, Drac. Some of the compounds used are capable of blocking receptors completely, unlike the perturbation from a blend of natural cannabinoids, some of these synthetics are simply blocking off brain functions in the users.

Fudge to prohibition of natural plants!

This reminds me, decision time: Happiness or Sweet Deep Grapefruit for the first of the day (on my way out to doss around in Cornwall) they’re both organic, it’s a hard one! 😆

At the same time, what’s clearly needed is a quantifiable source for recreational drugs that are inherently as safe as existing pharmaceuticals,which does not fund criminality.

That would be nice.

Legalise E and pot and all this bath salts crap goes away!

You lost me there, people don’t suffer side effects from the other stuff in E’s and pot, they suffer heart attacks because of MDMA, and become psychologically damaged due to THC. The contaminants might make things worse, but you’re unlikely to get them through any kind of FDA/NICE style approval process.

Personally I still think it’s like speed limits, everyone likes to think they’re not going to be the one that crashes, but when it goes wrong it’s the rest of the country that picks up the tab to keep them fed through a tube for the rest of their life.

I had a front row seat to my flatmate go from a 4xA’s at A-levels and heading for a 1st in Maths and a regular feature of nights out in the local Indie dives, to dropping out and stacking shelves in Co-Op and staying home mostly. Yes legalise it, the taxman could have taken £20 in tax from an ounce, I’m sure that will cover the economic impact of him probably never earning out of the tax free allowance compared to what he would have gone on to do.

Speeding, mass gun ownership and drugs are all great fun, but illegal because they’re dangerous and it’s human nature to want to have fun.

Yes good move. On canabis I have seen a couple of people have serious phycosis as a result of heavy smoking of it, I am glad it’s still a controlled substance.

the real problem is that it gets posted from abroad, and Royal Mail are obliged to deliver (even if they do safely destroy Rockshox by selling them on eBay before the postie gets killed by a deflated bicycle component). can HM customs (or whatever they call them now) labradors sniff out 10000’s of synthetics?

We cannot stop folk doing drugs so lets make sure they do it safely [ most of the banned ones are at least as safe as fags and alcohol – ok that is setting the bar pretty low]

yes but TBF it’s the law makers who set the bar at that height.

Not tried any but get the impression that legal highs are more dangerous than your traditional illegal ones – even after they’ve been mixed with talcum powder, rat poison etc

Drug laws are about as silly as englands access laws, cheeky trails all round.

you’re unlikely to get them through any kind of FDA/NICE style approval process.

Well if we can get tobacco and alcohol through I am sure we can get these through – I know they dont use that process as they would fail

FWIW i used to do school education on drugs and it is impossible to explain our current laws rationally. Tobacco kills 1/3 of its users, alcohol implicated in 75% of violent crimes etc.

illegal because they’re dangerous and it’s human nature to want to have fun.

I think thinks than endanger others should be illegal when the danger is just to you then its your choice – see MTB, base jumping, climbing for examples

I have seen a couple of people have serious phycosis as a result of heavy smoking of it,

We all have as we have all seen folk have issues from alcohol or gambling or tobacco etc

Few would argue there are no risks to drug taking [ or indeed any activity including cycling] but we need to debate how large the risks are and whether folk should be allowed to chose for themselves

Can I just go on record as saying i have never done a legal high in my life 😉

ninfan opined

😆
Nice to find common ground in the chat forum every so often.

I have had a professional interest/concern in drugs through the class b/class c/class b years, and certainly some of the problems we have seen arise from the illegality of drugs. I mean particularly legal highs which would have no market at all if there was a safe legal market for more ‘predictable’ ones. The first object of making a legal high is the dodging of the law, the effect on your brain and body is secondary. I have never seen drug-induced psychosis and rapid loss of concsiousness quite like the cases in more recent years on legals. However, similar thoughts here about the rise of very thc-heavy skunk grown in the uk, and the shockingly poor and adulterated cocaine and heroin which is dangerous because of the nature of the supply chain as much as the pure chemical itself.

I got a really really good idea! Lets tackle a medical issue by making something illegal, that will solve the problem.

Is mdma dangerous though?
Don’t the stats show that it’s far far safer statistically han many prescription drugs?

You lost me there, people don’t suffer side effects from the other stuff in E’s and pot, they suffer heart attacks because of MDMA, and become psychologically damaged due to THC. The contaminants might make things worse, but you’re unlikely to get them through any kind of FDA/NICE style approval process.

One word

Dosage

All sorts of drugs are disastrously damaging if you are unable to gauge your dosage – imagine the carnage if products containing paracetamol didn’t say how much was in them, so you couldn’t tell 200mg tablets from 1000mg! As for FDA/NICE, why not? After all, I must have imagined working on extensive pre-clinical trials of medical grade cannabis oil at a large CRO several years ago…

They’re not ‘intended for human consumption’ now they’re marketd as all sortdsof crap (which they in fact are) care to buy some bath salts sir? Whatever you dont eat them >wink<.

Pissing in to the wind. You may as well try and ban [Oops swear filter] – ‘manually relieving oneself’.

Where has the apparently widely held notion that legal highs are safe come from ?

There is nothing natural about many of the psychoactive compounds targeted by this legislation.

It strikes me that there is an almost romanticised, 60’s kinda free love view of acid/pot that is now applied to almost all recreational drug use.

I’m also bemused by the belief that the state wants to control these chemicals for reasons other than public health.

fr0sty125 – Member

I got a really really good idea! Lets tackle a medical issue by making something illegal, that will solve the problem.

About 3 weeks ago as an active member of the Labour Party you were campaigning for precisely that.

ELECTION 2015: Labour bid to get tough on legal highs

Pissing in to the wind. You may as well try and ban

but, but they’re doing something.
Just being seen to be doing something rather than actually fixing the problem seems pretty common.

I’m also bemused by the belief that the state wants to control these chemicals for reasons other than public health.

if they were really bothered about health they’d be looking at legalising and regulating proper drugs. Yes I’m sure a lot of politicians hate to see people going batshit on legal highs but what they are doing won’t in anyway fix the root problem.

@ Yunki depends on your definition of dangerous [ my info is a number of years out of date to be clear] i just rechecked good source here[/url]

Most deaths were as result of some other “side affect” – water retention, over heating/hypothermia, with 1 being an allergic reaction
Total death number in the circa 20 per year – when one considers that millions of pills have been consumed [ by hundreds of thousands] that is pretty low.
Its not that risky but it is not without risks
Alcohol death rate per user is higher…much higher 1 in 1000 v 1 in 20000 ish

As for “medicine” it will depend on the medicine and just how risky
IMHO that will be an abuse of stats as some folk die from the medicine but the alternative is a much quicker death – see cancer treatment for examples

I’m also bemused by the belief that the state wants to control these chemicals for reasons other than public health.

Why are alcohol and tobacco, the greatest killers of users, still legal then if it is a health based decision making process?
Kids asked me this…there is no answer when you look at the facts/risks/deaths.

Cannabis Legalisation is working out great in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.