“Banned in the United States, Canada, and Sweden, but legal in the UK, plans now to make potentially lethal drugs illegal. GBL, a chemical solvent, synthetic cannabinoids, and the amphetamine BZP will be reclassified as the government tries to clamp down on their sale.” (ITN)
Alan Johnson, Home Secretary of the British Home Office recently announced the ban. He said it is a result of the harmful nature of the drugs, which are referred to as “legal highs” and have been linked to at least two deaths in Britain within the past two years.
The media are reaching out to drug regulation experts who are talking about whether or not the ban would help decrease drug usage and the number of deaths related to it.
The BBC brings in perspective from Professor David Nutt, with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He says the products being sold, as “herbal legal highs” are more harmful than they seem.
“the herbal content is coated in one or more dangerous chemical compounds that mimic the effects of cannabis. These are not harmless herbal alternatives and have been found to cause paranoia and panic attacks.”
ITN shares with us a more personal view, talking to nutritionist Maryon Stewart whose 21-year-old daughter died from combining GBL with alcohol. Stewart is now raising awareness about the dangers of such drugs.
“If they think it’s natural, and I don’t even know if Hester knew she took it, it’s colorless and it’s odorless, but if they think something’s natural then obviously they’re more likely to try it and I think it needs to be classified so they understand the dangers. And particularly with GBL because when combined with even a small amount of alcohol it can result in death.”
Sky News also talks with Professor Tony Moffat of the London School of Pharmacy. He believes that the threat of the “legal high” drugs is that they don’t have to be tested.
“The downside is that it can scramble your brain in large quantities. We don’t know what side effects they have – psychotic episodes, heart attacks, they may cause schizophrenia. So the dangers of the synthetic ones are that we don’t know the safety parameters.”
But CNN says a ban isn’t the way to go, and would enhance the market for more synthetic, legal highs.
“Is that going to reduce those harms or is it potentially going to create another series of harms, either by directing those uses back towards previously illegal drugs by creating an illegal market for these drugs or potentially by creating a void in the market into which the backstreet chemists and entrepreneurs will move by creating the next generation of so-called legal highs.”
The Guardian talks to a researcher who says the ban could have an even worse effect.
“Instead of using Spice, they will go back to cannabis…instead of using BZP, they will go back to amphetamines, and instead of GBL, they will go back to GHB.” -- Steve Rolles, Transform Drug Policy Foundation
A Time Magazine writer compares the problem and solutions in the UK to ones on the other side of the Pacific.
“The U.S. has long had an answer to cutting off the supply of legal highs: a blanket law that bans not just one particular drug, but any drug that resembles it.” – “The U.K. is now moving closer to the American model, but instead of a big blanket ban, the government is crafting several smaller laws to cover whole families of drugs.”
Finally, DoseNation shows a different perspective of Martin Barnes, CEO of Drugscope, who says that legislation alone is not enough.
“Well we welcome the fact that the government is taking this action but, I think to use the law of itself is a pretty blunt instrument. As important, if not more so, is really public health campaigns, people that do have problems with these drugs, as we’ve seen with GBL, that the help and support is available.
So what’s the best way to keep people from using these “legal highs”? Will the proposed ban succeed in drug use prevention, or will it only add further complications to Britain’s war on drugs?
