Britain’s trade in legal highs is booming. Two new legal highs – synthetic chemical compounds that mimic the effects of drugs such as ecstasy and methamphetamines – are identified every week, with 101 new substances detected in 2014 alone.
Britain’s ban on legal highs will include laughing gas and poppers as well as any new compound that mimics the effects of traditional illegal drugs.
Ireland introduced a blanket ban on the sale of legal highs four years with the aim of closing down high street shops, specifically drug paraphernalia shops seen as key legal high outlets, and online websites offering them openly for sale.
Paul Griffiths, the EU drug agency’s scientific director, told the Guardian that the evidence from Ireland and Poland where blanket bans were introduced was that there was an immediate impact on availability, as head shops closed down, but that in the medium to long term the trade moved online or into illegal street markets.
The use of legal highs by young people show the highest levels of use in the last 12 months were in Ireland (9%), where a blanket ban has been in force since 2010, followed by France (8%), Spain (8%), Slovenia (7%) and the UK (6%) according to latest Eurobarometer figures.
We want to hear from you about your experiences of taking and buying legal highs. Are you in favour of blanket bans, or do you think it will move the trade underground? Share your experiences anonymously using the form below. We’ll use a selection in a feature on the site.
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