Drug Minister Puts a Temporary Ban on Five Legal Highs

Five legal highs are banned starting midnight of April 10.

Lynne Featherstone, UK’s drug minister, accepted the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to ban five legal highs temporarily to give them a thorough review and assessment on the harm they pose.

She said that she had accepted the council’s recommendation to put a 12-month ban on five substances, including one of the most common legal highs in Britain that is used as an alternative to cocaine- ethylphenidate, a widely marketed (and abused) research chemical that users inject to get high.

The said RC is a component of branded products, including Nopaine, Gogaine, Banshee Dust and Burst, which were all available in Britain for four years.

In a related story, Scotland Police said that “Burst,” as it was marketed in Edinburgh, was responsible for most of the casualties seeking emergency attention last summer.

But ethylphenidate isn’t alone, as its former legal high friends, 3, 4-Dichloromethylphenidate, Methylnaphthidate, Isopropylphenidate and Propylphenidate are also now illegal.

ACMD told that ethylphenidate was one of the most commonly used legal highs (officially known as new psychoactive substances) that has become popular as an alternative to the illicit drug, cocaine.

The council banned it after evidence of its harm, particularly to users in Somerset, Taunton and Edinburgh. And to avoid switching, they also recommended the temporary ban of four closely related compounds.

The ACMD Chairman Professor Les Iversen said that users were putting themselves in danger of infections and blood-borne diseases by injecting ethylphenidate.

Somerset and Avon police told that injecting legal highs in public places became an epidemic; in fact, 200 needles were recovered in just one-clean up day.

A person who is caught importing, supplying or making these temporarily banned legal highs will get himself into trouble of up to 14 years jail time and fine. Border officials and police can search and detain anyone in possession of any of these banned substances as well as to keep, dispose or seize them.

Photo Credit: Daily Mail