Pubdate: Wed, 06 Apr 2016
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2016 Telegraph Media Group Limited
Contact:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114

LEGAL HIGH CONCERNS

When the Home Office decided to impose a blanket ban on synthetic 
drugs known as legal highs, it must have thought this would be a 
reasonably straightforward matter. These substances are harmful to 
those who take them and have been blamed by police for an upsurge in 
violence among young people. But drafting legislation has not proved 
an easy task. There was concern in the Church, for instance, that 
incense would be proscribed since it is capable of producing a 
psychoactive effect. Assurances have since been offered by ministers 
that vicars would not be caught up in the ban.

However, as the Bill progressed through Parliament, MPs and peers 
expressed worries about how substances that are benign or even 
helpful to people, including herbal remedies, were not on the 
exemption list. The Psychoactive Substances Act should have become 
law today, but its implementation has been delayed while ministers 
work out what they have banned. Recently, experts said poppers, or 
amyl nitrate, were not illegal under the Act despite the Government's 
assurances that they are.

The legislation is an attempt to clamp down on designer substances 
that, for instance, mimic the effects of cannabis; yet arrests for 
possession of the real drug have collapsed in the past five years 
because the police say they have better things to do. The number of 
people cautioned or charged for possessing cannabis has also fallen 
dramatically even though survey data suggests cannabis use remained 
roughly level over the same period. This policy is confusing and 
incoherent. The Government needs to be sure its new Act works 
properly before putting it into practice.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom