'Legal highs' should be automatically banned, says government drugs adviser

[akfools]

'Legal highs' should be automatically banned, says government drugs adviser

Advisory council calls for tougher US-style system to control designer drugs that mimic effects of illegal substances

New designer drugs, such as mephedrone, have played a role in 42 deaths in the past two years. Photograph: Jon Enoch/eyevine

All "legal highs" or designer drugs such as mephedrone – now banned – that mimic the effects of established illegal drugs, should be automatically banned, according to the government's official advisers on illicit substances.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has said the government needs to adopt a much tougher US-style system of controls. The recommendation comes after claims that the more recently available designer drugs have played a role in 42 deaths in the past two years.

Prof Les Iversen, the ACMD chair, said tougher controls were needed to prevent suppliers from simply tweaking the chemistry of newly banned substances to get around the law.

More than 40 new legal highs have been identified in the past two years, often emerging from laboratories in south-east Asia, where chemists design new compounds that replicate the effects of already banned substances such as cannabis, amphetamine and ecstasy.

Many are marketed through online sites offering the substances as "plant food" or "not fit for human consumption", but their purpose is often transparent.

Iversen said the Polish government had recently taken bold action in closing down hundreds of "head shops" similar to those found in Camden market, north London, as well as automatically banning new legal highs.

The British government has responded by introducing a system of temporary bans on each new substance as soon as it emerges; parliamentary approval is needed for each banning order before detailed tests are done to determine the level of harm of the substance.

But the ACMD says it necessary to go further and adopt a system similar to the US analogue act whereby substances bearing a chemical similarity to existing controlled substances, such as amphetamines or the active ingredient in cannabis, are banned. "The system of temporary bans is not a winning strategy because new substances will always continue to emerge," said Iversen.

"Just because it is advertised as a legal high does not mean it is safe. Users are playing a game of Russian roulette when they buy something described as research drugs. They are researching the effects on themselves. It is a totally unregulated market. We are not seeing just a nice party drug but something that can kill."

The government's drug advisers also want to see existing legislation used more effectively to prevent legal highs being falsely advertised as bath salts or plant food, and to shift the burden of proof on to suppliers to show their products are safe for human consumption.

Iversen said figures from the the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths, based at St George's hospital, south London, had logged 127 suspected cases of deaths in Britain that had links with mephedrone over the past two years. Forty-two cases were confirmed as having a link with mephedrone, although none had given the drug as the direct cause of death. So far, 29 of the 127 suspected cases have been shown to have no connection with mephedrone.

The ACMD report says a different type of drug dealer has emerged. Entrepreneurs are seizing upon the business opportunities. "Many people importing these new substances appear to have had no previous involvement in the illicit drug trade and are just in it to make a quick buck. They have included students who have set up websites to supply nationally and who also supply the local student population."

These dealers ensure that the market is quickly saturated with the new drug, the report adds.

But Roger Howard, of the UK Drug Policy Commission thinktank, warned that the tough approach was unlikely to work. "Analogue controls would save politicians from the pressure to do something when the new drugs appear on the market. But they wouldn't solve the real problem."

He said it was increasingly difficult for the police to identify the rapidly growing numbers of psychoactive drugs on the market.

"Controlling even more drugs through the drug laws doesn't do anything to help that nor to prevent the harm that might emerge. We need to think differently, about using other controls to bring some discipline to an unregulated market."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/25/legal-highs-automatically-banned

[Kilika]

'Legal highs' should be automatically banned, says government drugs adviser

So are they going to ban alcohol, caffine, chocolate, energy drinks, prescription drugs? Hypocrites. 

[Overcast]

So are they going to ban alcohol, caffine, chocolate, energy drinks, prescription drugs? Hypocrites. 

No, they make money legally on that stuff. The 'legal highs' are disrupting their network of illegal drugs they make a killing off of.

Just because it is advertised as a legal high does not mean it is safe.

At least we see that therein lies a similarity with the FDA - just because it's been approved by the FDA does not mean it is safe.

[pavelow]

No, they make money legally on that stuff. The 'legal highs' are disrupting their network of illegal drugs they make a killing off of.

At least we see that therein lies a similarity with the FDA - just because it's been approved by the FDA does not mean it is safe.

Good to see you here dude!

[Overcast]

Good to see you here dude!

I am GLAD to be here. While I don't mind going rounds on the secular forums and such, it's nice to have a refreshing corner of the web to talk with like-minded people about issues.

[Mark]

Munnsville woman allegedly high on 'bath salts' dies after attacking child

A Madison County woman alleged to be high on drugs is dead after assaulting her child and receiving a Taser shock while she struggled with police.

According to State Police, around 7:45 p.m. Tuesday Troopers were called to an apartment on North Main Street in the Village of Munnsville for a report of a woman assaulting her three-year-old child. While police were responding to scene, they say Madison County 911 dispatchers received several follow-up reports that the woman was punching and choking the child and had started to attack a neighbor.

When police arrived, they say they found 35-year-old Pamela McCarthy apparently under the influence of “bath salts”, an illegal synthetic drug. Police say Trooper Christopher Budlong attempted to arrest McCarthy, who was “violently combative” and may have been "growling," according to police and resisted attempts to handcuff her. Budlong used his police-issued pepper spray on McCarthy to no effect, so he then deployed his Taser and was able to handcuff McCarthy with the help of rescue personnel.

Police then say that after McCarthy was taken into custody she went into apparent cardiac arrest. She was taken by ambulance to Oneida Healthcare, where she later died.

At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, State Police said the use of the Taser was justified. Troopers said the woman has a history of using bath salts.

An autopsy was unable to pinpoint the exact cause of death, according to police. It could take several weks before toxicology results are back.

Wednesday morning, eyewitnesses David and Zachary Bridge told CNY Central's Jim Kenyon that they saw McCarthy come out of the rear exit of her apartment with the boy in her arms, and tumble down the stairs holding onto the child. They say she began assaulting the child and was yelling incoherently. Witnesses say at one point she was sitting on the pavement spinning and laughing as she was hurting the child. They said the boy's father intervened and took the child away from McCarthy, at which point she chased a neighbor, Heather Ames, into her apartment and attacked her.

Ames told Kenyon that she fought off the attack, and McCarthy went back out into the parking lot, stripped off all of her clothes, and threatened people passing by.

Witnesses say McCarthy then went back into her apartment and tumbled down the stairs again, this time with her pet pit bull in her arms, and then injured the dog as well. State Police and rescue units showed up at which point McCarthy became combative and resisted arrest. Ames says the Trooper (Budlong) repeatedly told McCarthy to let go of the dog, and pepper-sprayed her to no avail.

At several points, witnesses say McCarthy was warned by Troopers that she would be tased if she did not let go of the dog. After McCarthy was tased and handcuffed, a neighbor informed the Trooper that McCarthy had undergone an operation to place stents in her heart just two days prior to the incident.

All three eyewitnesses Kenyon spoke with said that Trooper Budlong was justified in the way he handled the situation.

Police say the child was taken by ambulance to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse. He was treated for minor injuries and released to family members.

State Police held a news conference Wednesday afternoon in Oneida. Deputies say Onondaga Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy, but they were unable to determine the cause and manner of death. Troop D commander Major Rodney Campbell says they are waiting for toxicology test results.


Campbell confirmed that McCarthy was high on bath salts and was not coherent at the time of her death.


The case will be presented to a grand jury, which is standard procedure when a person dies in police custody.

http://www.cnycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=764982#.T9iDarVYuHB

[Mark]

Bath Salts May Be Behind Naked Man Confronting Girl In Park

The drug that made headlines after the causeway cannibal case is back in the news again.

This time, North Miami Beach Police said a man believed to be on bath salts stripped nearly naked at a childrens playground and threatened a three-year-old girl with sexual advances.

Police said surviellance video shows Shane Shuyler stripping in the tot lot and then going very close to a three-year-old girl.

The girl’s mother told police that she and her daughter had entered the park at 20th Avenue and NE 168th street and were headed to the tot lot when they saw Schuyler lying on a park bench. The woman said the man was completely naked and his genitals were exposed.

She told police she tried to walk past the man, but said he stood up, exposed his genitals to the girl.

The police report said he told the child, “Come here little girl, I want to stick it in you.”

The woman fled her with daughter. The man never got close to them.

The bizarre incident unfolded in the tot lot that is located literally in the back yard of the North Miami Beach Police Department. Police arrested Shuyler and a detective in court said his behavior could be explained through a drug called bath salts.

“In his wallet was what appears to be bath salts,” said the detective. “Upon talking to him, he made some statements to me which led me to believe that he was cooling off in the fountain by the tot lot because he was hot; which is consistent with ingesting bath salts.”

Mothers bringing their children to the park Monday were alarmed to learn about the story.

“Its so scary, its very scary,“ said Glorida Moutran, a mother of two young kids. “You would expect that it would be safe especially here like we said its next to a police station you would expect it would be safe.”

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/06/11/bath-salts-may-be-behind-naked-man-confronting-girl-in-park/