Legal high ban soon as UK looks to call time on Spice
Monday 17th August 2009, 2:29PM BST.
GUERNSEY could have a ban on legal highs within two years.
Home minister Geoff Mahy said it could be even sooner if the UK followed recommendations from government drug advisors.
‘We are clearly watching progress in the UK with great interest,’ said Deputy Mahy.
‘We have already taken the first step by having a commercial importation ban and would like to see legal highs being made illegal very soon.’
A report released in the UK has called for a ban on the use and possession of herb extract Spice and other lega highs, which it claims can be as harmful as cannabis or worse.
Deputy Mahy said Spice was a particular cause for concern.
‘Spice is causing alarm to the medical profession,’ he said. ‘These drugs are affecting people’s emotional and physical state and can be quite dangerous when mixed with alcohol.’
He said it would be in the island’s interests to ban legal highs.
- To read Guernsey Press stories in full click here for subscription details. Individual editions are now available online.
Campaigns
Voice For Victims
Voice for Victims is a campaign aimed at promoting the rights of those affected by child sexual abuse.
This is Guernsey
Guernsey Press
Hi,
Can i just say, i think your news site is fantastic for allowing you to be able to have your say on this and many other issues.
Ban on spice? Yes, it’s a lot worse than cannabis.
Report abuse
yes it should be banned you get caught with any other class b drug you get done or jail but this stuff nothing and it does the same people have made a lot of money from this and its ok ??
Report abuse
i think that the goverment should stop making everything illegal. why do they have a problem with people that high in there basement not causing any trouble not distrbing anyone just getting relaxed. if they want to spend there money on weed and bongs then let them. weed is a natural way to fell happy and relaxed so just **** off and get a life
Report abuse
Dang it dawg!
Looks like I’m going to have to send Mrs P Jnr. back out on to the streets again to find the secret ingredient for my famous brownies.
Fo’snizzle.
Report abuse
dd – the problem is that people don’t just get high in their basements and feel happy and relaxed. Not everyone who smokes weed gets “happy and relaxed.”
Any substance (no matter how natural) that has a psychoactive effect, if used constantly, carries the significant risk of mental health issues – be that alcohol, spice, cocaine, weed or Mrs P’s brownies. You can’t mess with your mind forever and get away with it.
It is precisely because I want people to “get a life” that I support regulation. Although some of the evidence is still anecdotal, I would far rather take heed from those who work on the front line with users and have seen the adverse effects of these substances than wait for some doctor/politician in his ivory tower to procrastinate while people mess their lives up with mind-bending drugs.
Report abuse
Mrs P – give me a call, as part of my horticulture GCSE I’ve been cultivating some ethically sourced, fairtrade, organic, sustainable banisteriopsis caapi and rusbyana vines in a greenhouse in Torteval. Dunno if they’ll work in your brownies, but they make a lovely brew!
Paul – surely the problem is that users have a life already, but they’re just not that keen on it, hence the need for stimulation. Surely we’d do better to offer more social/pyschological support for these groups than to remove the one crutch they’ve got?
Report abuse
Of coarse they will all be replaced by ‘proper’ illegal drugs as soon as the ban takes effect. To be fair though, I think people are much better smoking cannabis (despite the much publicised health issues) than Spice, that stuff is just wrong.
I have said it before on these forums, it is not so much the responsible adults that are the problem but the under 18s who have limitless access to ‘legals’.
Report abuse
So using Paul Le P’s logic we should ban anything that causes someone to go to the doctor, or A&E.
Or is it because the socio-economic group that is more likely to use this substance cannot be trusted as responsible members of society?
You can just imagine the reaction from the great and the good if The Finest Wines Available To Humanity were made illegal because a thirteen year old was found lying in a ditch, the remains of a vintage St Emilion smeared all over the cherub’s fizzog.
20 Year Old Single Malt? You can kiss goodbye to the youth if they get their mits on these beauties.
It’s all shameless hypocrisy. Does anyone know the percentage statictics for hospilitisation against usage? No? So we ban on the few cases we know about.
Who makes that judgement and with what criteria? Why are those criteria not used for all possible toxins absed on scientific and not hysterical evidence?
Mmmm super strength lager…..come on, who’ll time me downing a four pack?
Report abuse
Ah Student Bob
I would have thought that MrsPin would lose her vulgar hairpiece if she went anywhere near those concoctions. That’s what the monkey god told me before the cosmos took my mind.
Report abuse
Student Bob!
What are you trying to do? Kill off the Guernsey Tea Party scene???????? Or just send us off to meet the machine elves?
As you should be more than aware the whole point of using banisteriopsis caapi is for the MAOI contained therein, and as such your brew is contraindicated with dark chocolate – itself containing a mild monoamine oxidase inhibitor as well as pesky tyramine that causes the main problem in the first place. So my brownies really could give you a wild ride with that combo!
Hmmmmmmm, maybe not such a bad idea afterall………………. I wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes?
Report abuse
If they are banned then they will be effectively illegal, thus you are not really banning legal highs because once banned such things won’t exist. QED.
Report abuse
Surely pushing something ‘underground’ will not make it go away!!!
Student Jim, you say that they won’t exist anymore if they are banned? I don’t really get your comment!!! Are you trying to say that anything that’s illegal ceases to exist? If you are then that’s just ridiculous!!!
In my opinion making legal highs illegal is just going to make them more desirable because it raises the eliment of risk and excitement in getting hold of them.
Any drug is addictive and for the people who are addicted then making it illegal is not going to stop them!!!
Report abuse
You can’t make legal highs illegal because then the legal highs don’t exist. What you end up with is illegal highs which by their very definition are not legal ;)
Report abuse
These so-called legal highs are being sold and used by the under 18′s. Equally, the impact of using these legal highs is causing massive social issues for the user, for their families and employer. No decent parent would want to see their once well-adjusted teenage son or daughter turn into a wild animal whose social skills, aspirations and life have changed over a very short period because of using these legal highs. The addicts of tomorrow are being created by these legal highs and how anyone can defend the use of them or be agaianst a ban is beyond comprehension.
Report abuse
Guernseygal – I think that Student Jim is merely making a comment on the use of oxymoron I think – if something is illegal, it cannot also be illegal – the words are of opposite meaning. Therefore, highs will, of course, remain but legal highs WILL cease to exist, on account of their being illegal. Same high, different name.
Report abuse
Apologies Mrs P. La Purga. It’s been a heck of a day.
I see you’ve got your MAO inhibitors well catered for, shall I put you down for some B. Rusbyana then? If Friday’s tea party is going to ride the tail of a giant serpent between heaven and earth you’ll be wanting those tryptamines.
Pete. Everything you’ve said can equally be attributed to alcohol (and unlike legal highs, there’s substantial peer-reviewed research to validate this). Would you also recommend a ban on alcohol?
Report abuse
“In my opinion making legal highs illegal is just going to make them more desirable because it raises the eliment of risk and excitement in getting hold of them.”
I disagree – the evidence shows that before any legal intervention, use of legal highs was widespread. Seems their legal status didn’t put many people off?
Also look at alcohol – it’s legal status doesn’t seem to have put many off abusing it. (I’m not suggesting banning alcohol by the way)
Report abuse
It’s about time, I tryed it once, horrible stuff it really messes you up and doesn’t even give a good high.
By the way spelling mistake
herb extract Spice and other “lega” highs
Report abuse
Can somebody please show me ANY REAL EVIDENCE that prohibition works?
Report abuse
There is no argument with you there Pete Burtenshaw, developing brains should be protected from drugs. I doubt anyone would say otherwise. Addiction is a relentless illness, for everyone involved. It is the adults’ responsibility to realise that the world they create through their actions is the world that children learn and adapt their lives to.
The drugs industry, once the preserve of the curious and the sociopath, has become a global market, rapidly evolving and finding new ways to reinforce and establish new boundaries. The money brings influence and all of a sudden taking drugs is no longer counter-culture, but an every day way of life, one with its own set of rules.
The ‘legal high’ ventures are the product of investment into R&D and the mass marketing of the once little-known world of ‘ethnogens’ and ‘research chemicals’. Cash buys most secrets and within a few years a whole host of easily available and, crucially, untested. The people who could testify were already die-hard, whether mad lab techs or Amazonian Shaman! Not a great research sample. These chemicals should never have been industrialised. The fact that very few people would come across them or were aware of their existence at all and extreme-niche practices tend to be well hidden. For good reason.
So why? Well, the US showed the way in the Thirties when, overnight, the entire alcohol industry was left without someone to organise it.
Criminal gangs operated with impunity in most, if not all, levels and markets in society. So we already know that driving the issue underground increases the risks, increases dishonesty and mistrust within social groups, automatically creates a high risk high return meritocracy – the better you get at judging risk, the more money, the better access to new markets, it’s business after all – and the attraction for the young is that being part of it, maybe looking up to, the various layers of criminal hierarchy and seeing a disproportionate amount of realisable wealth, or somewhere that juvenile anti-authority is a necessity to justify the whole existence.
My worry about another ban is that it creates another income stream for someone, maybe someone you know, who is willing to balance the risk of getting caught with the cash waiting just the other side of customs. The ‘clunking fist’ cannot bash out complicated social reality. The ban shows that society means business, it wants a result, but without combining it with a network of education and support, and responsible adults who believe what the children are telling them to encourage them to talk.
Respect for responsible adults relies on trust, only then will any enforcement of laws have any impact. I expect to be even more unpopular by saying that we need more public money targeted at this issue.
Adults should be able to choose to take whatever personal risk appeals to them. But that can only happen when the drug industry is put under lawful control. Then we can ban from a position of power.
Oh don’t get reactionary, the hurdles involved in unravelling the criminal network won’t be done in an episode of The Bill, but we must remember that we’ve done it with the other medicines and recreational drugs we take every day.
You’d be surprised how many kids are simply not interested in knowing what mind-fraying drugs ‘feel’ like, despite flicking the Vs at the cops.
Let’s be optimistic. I hope a ban prevents even one person bothering to find out what all this fuss is about, even if it’s because they missed out on the dealer because they were held up reading this thread.
Report abuse
When will the people have there say in the matter? Everybody knows where a ban on legal highs will ultimatly lead. Why is it that people die in larger numbers, ever more incresing annually due to the real legal drugs, such as tobbaco, alcohol and lets not forget the nay sayers favorite, “pharmaceuticals”. thats right, as long as you got your pills who cares what they ban. these drugs kill people every year, more and more, setting record numbers. We live in a world where a man has the right to purchase a fire arm, but not cannabis, then the men in suits want to talk about safety? or protecting the people? well people agree or disagree, but either way “they” will decide for you. i dont need to lay out the facts about cannabis and recent sucsessful studies because we are all quite capabile of finding the answers out for our selves. Now understand i am not anti-government, but i am againts people being incarcerated and having there lives destroyed over ridiculous laws that dont help people, or even being to analize the backward stadards that these current laws produce, i.e more money for criminals, more taxes to pay for citizens. all these bans will do is further isolate us from what society should be, not to mention that the facts are on the side of cannabis. so if you choose to regard weed as dangerous, thats fine, even though scientific research, not to mention world research,(how many people have died from direct marijuana comsumption?) is on the side of the truth. i totally understand that certain things in life are not for everyone, but that does not give certain individual the right to tell you NO!!! because remember when the next bull**** war breaks out, it will be those same individuals ignoring your children and sending them to die, for probably no good reason. and p.s i am american and love cannabis, although i have not smoked in over 3 years because i am devoted to serving my country in the army.
Report abuse
Arnald – “Respect for responsible adults relies on trust, only then will any enforcement of laws have any impact. I expect to be even more unpopular by saying that we need more public money targeted at this issue.”
….you won’t be more unpopular with me, as I agree with you 100%. Any ban (which I support) should be part of a wider strategy, including finding out why young people want to risk their health bending their minds with chemicals.
Report abuse
PLP
Nothing will be done in conjuction. They already want to sell of parts of the caring services. Some deputies have been itching for years for an excuse to tuck in.
When the services get squeezed and social tension increases, people break the law, or merely look for distraction away from the increasingly despised ‘normality’.
That’s cold, hard fact. Criminalising youths won’t solve this.
Report abuse
David; What a fantastic comment, if only more people like you were in charge! here here! p.s i think you’d like Ben Elton’s ‘High Society’ if you havent read it already.
Report abuse
Mrs P – can I come to the next tea Party, I havent been to a good old shing ding in ages. Iv got some lovely flavoured rolling tobacco we can share in the parlour after dinner whilst indulging in a nip of brandy, unless they are going to ban that now too?
Report abuse
may i recomend a film by mr m moore to watch….”sicko”. it has been on sky and is well worth a watch to understand the power behind the drugs and also goverment.
i also think that the island should raise the drinking age to 21 and ban ALL smoking. the amount of money saved through healthcare would be a huge chunk to go towards the pensions. we would need a system to reduce the amount of healthy old people though. “soylent green” is another film that could save us a few bob.
Report abuse
Yes. The government should decide what we can and cannot put inside our own bodies. All hail the government! Please, lock me in jail to save me from getting a bit paranoid and having a lower sperm count. All hail tyranny.. err.. I mean ‘freedom’!
Report abuse
BAN ALCOHOL!!
I have smoked both cannabis and spice and would have to say the cannabis is much worse.
Cannabis is far too strong nowadays and you need to mix it with tobacco, and of course they get addicted to smoking joints but are only really addicted to the nicotine. Spice has more of a pre-skunk buzz, nice and chilled and pleasurable …. unlike skunk which puts you in a coma for the night.
So ban alcohol or tobacco because they are much worse!
Report abuse
What happened to education? Won’t it be better if these young minds were educated about drug use rather than banning them completely. http://www.newsy.com/videos/britain_bans_legal_highs. The ban’s going to lead to a massive black market which could be far more dangerous. Banning’s just the easy way out.
Report abuse