All Legal Highs Are Going To Be Automatically Banned
All legal highs are going to be banned automatically under a new law designed to stop the spread of new drugs for recreational use, the government announced today in the Queen’s Speech. Under the proposals there will be a default ban on “any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect”. Anyone who breaks the ban would face up to seven years in prison. At the moment the government has to identify a new drug by its precise chemical formation, then create a specific law to ban it. This process can take years and producers can easily get around the legislation by slightly altering the chemicals used to make each drug, forcing the government to start the whole process again and ensuring legal highs remain available. The new law, announced by the Conservative government, will instead introduce an automatic assumption that all new psychoactive drugs are illegal to sell. However, it will not criminalise...