BY BEN KERRIGAN
A blanket ban on “legal highs” has been delayed until May in order to adequately prepare all the necessary activity to enable smooth implementation of the legislation, the Home Office has today said in an official statement.
The initial plan was to put the ban in place as from next Wednesday, but it now seems that Parliament don’t feel everything is in place to effectively legalize the ban one of one of the most legal substances currently available in shops, and which has caused the deaths of a numbe rof people across the Uk in the past year.
Legal highs are widely used especially by youths as a substitute for cannabis, but the deadly substance is not meant for human consumption of any sort. Parliament will be given at least 21 days’ notice before it starts, and given that Parliament is in recess until April 11, May 1 is the earliest possible date for the law to come into force. Most users feel as if they are going to die when under the influence of the substance, and some have eventually adapted to the strong paranoid feeling generated by the substance when smoked, and now habitually indulge in its consumption.
Home Office Minister Karen Bradley said in an official statement “We expect to commence the Psychoactive Substances Act in its entirety in the spring.
“We need to ensure the readiness of all the activity necessary to enable the smooth implementation of the legislation across the UK and to support law enforcement in their ability to drive forward the legislation on commencement.”
The Act will bring in a blanket ban on the production, distribution, sale and supply of “designer drugs”, with sellers facing up to seven years in prison.
Last week it was confirmed that poppers will not be banned in the crackdown.
The Home Office said that while April 6 was the first date on which the legislation could be “commenced” or started, it was always subject to consideration of all the moves necessary across the UK for the provisions to come into force.
A spokesman for the department said: “In line with the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the Government is in the final stages of putting in place a programme of testing to demonstrate a substance’s psychoactivity prior to commencement of the Act.”
ADDICTED
Those who have become addicted to the drug thrive on the fact it is legal, and enjoy the absolute paralytic state it puts them in when high. Even those with the highest level of resistance are knocked out when high, but love the feeling of being ruined when high. Chances are that it will go underground once banned, and compete with common types of cannabis like ‘scunk’- a high strain of cannabis used widely for recreational purposes by more than 5million brits today. It is unlikely to successfully compete with scunk, but with the way drug dealers exploit the market by serving small quantities of scunk to their customers, rival dealers may prop up the quantity of legal highs on the streets in a bid to lure away scunk smokers and attract new users, particularly school children.
Wider education in schools on the dangers of legal highs and skunk would be very helpful, and one Parliament should impose on every school in the land for the safety and interest of children.
