Legal highs such as Spice become outlawed drugs
Thursday 25th February 2010, 2:29PM GMT.
MORE ‘legal highs’ have been banned by Health and Social Services and the Home Department.
The schedules to the Misuse of Drugs Law 1974 have been amended and now it will be illegal to import, export, produce, supply or possess a number of substances.
The move follows the Home Department’s ban on the import and export of emerging drugs of concern for commercial use in April 2009. And the extension made in November, which includes a ban on quantities for personal use of the more harmful substances.
Psychotropic substances, which are known as synthetic cannabinoids and found in Spice, additional anabolic steroids and Gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL) and 1,4-Butanediol (1,4-BD) are now all illegal.
All BZP-related compounds have also been banned – before now only BZP was prohibited.
The synthetic cannabinoids have been designated as Class B and the others have been listed as Class C.
Health and Social Services minister Hunter Adam has signed the legislation, which will come into effect on 8 March 2010.
‘This move will bring Guernsey into line with the UK and will enable the authorities to better minimise the risk posed by these emerging drugs of concern,’ said Deputy Adam.
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Looks like I will have to take up Meow Meow now.
As that is still legal I assume it must be perfectly safe.
Well done States for pointing me in the right direction.
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Personally I don’t like any of that Spice stuff and it’s effects, and I think it (Spice) was one of the worst things on sale with the biggest impact.
The ban on personal importation has vastly improved the drug dependency situation (according to previous reports), so why seek to criminalise those with a problem?
Also, how are we to refer to these ‘legal highs’ from March 8th? I suggest ‘penal highs’ (street) and ‘used-to-be-legal-but-not-really-legal highs’ (official/scientific).
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Why make such a fuss about these drugs when Booze and Fags kill and injure so many people?
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I Le Page
Because booze and fags are used by States members, the police, customs officers etc.
Why let the facts regarding the danger of various drugs (which show that alcohol and nicotine are more dangerous than many illegal drugs) get in the way of the social lives of those who make the laws and are responsible for upholding them?
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I Le Page
DOH
Because the effects of booze and fags have been researched over many years allowing you to make an informed choice before you poison your body.
The so called legal highs are totally unresearched.
And i object to spending my hard hard cash paying for idiots who use this stuff to have off Island treatment
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So Egghead, you’re happy to pay for the millions spent on alcohol and tobacco related diseases, and the extra policing needed to deal with drunken idiots at the weekend?
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Or it could be due to the amount of money the States make from the tax on Alcohol and tobacco??
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Good,stamp out all drug abuses before they get out of hand.When you think of all the hardship brought into families from drugs you wonder the penalties for pushers are not far more severe.Ah yes,there are those that abuse tobacco and alcohol,but then there are those who abuse their bodies with fast food,butter,suger,and other unhealthy foods consumed in excess,so one can go on and on,but drugs,can you tell me why there are so many poor creatures with the craving to destroy themselves?But quite frankly,the war against drugs will never be won while there are such vast profits to be made from the mugs who buy them!Hang the drug peddlers where everyone can see them,but we know in this softy society this won’t happen,so let the agony and dispair
for many families continue!
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Donald, so making drugs illegal means there is no abuse? It’s about time people like yourself realised prohibition doesn’t work.
Can you point out the difference between drinking yourself to death, eatiing so much you become obese or taking narcotics? (apart from the legality)
Thw war against drugs is not being “lost” because of the vast profits, it’s being “lost” because there will always be demand.
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Donald Remfrey, prepare for the backlash your post so rightly deserves.
Criminalising drug users (casual or dependant) puts these ‘vast profits’ in the hands of the people you wish to ‘hang’. This is a fact, and there is no better example than Guernsey in 2010.
Since the recent bans the substances have still been available, but sold by ‘peddlers’ who have increased the price and cut them with who-knows-what?
I think you miss the point (as usual) and your post sounds like bad plagiarism from the Daily Mail.
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Donald
Are you any of the following?
Jeremy Kyle??
A writer for the daily mail??
A contributer to take a break??
Somebody that screams “wont somebody please think of the children” on a regular basis??
Because its precisely opinions like your sensationalist uninformed garbage, that skew the opinion of the largely ignorant general populace and have led to the mess that we are currently in.
Education is the way forward, but you’d have everyone hung??
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Dear Donald
1. Pushers? What on earth does this word mean? Substances are drawn not pushed. The notion that users are forced into their addictions is a misnomer.
2. Drugs? Which ones Donald – they are many and varied and their effect on the user and society quite different. Some addictive some not. Some used day in day and others just at a party or club. In fact, high fat foods are probably more harmful than the odd ‘E’ or Trip so you’ll be hanging producers and processors of diary products from the lamp posts I assume?
3. Profits – by the very nature of their illegality the profits to be made are high because the penalties are severe. Sentences of 8 to 14+ years are quite common for medium scale dealing in smack/crack. You may think that’s a walk in the park, I assure you it isn’t (and no Donald, they are not like holiday camps)
A little ‘knowledge’ is a dangerous thing. Unfortunately UK drugs policy is not science lead but Daily Mail lead and their ‘classification’ system is followed by ours.
There is a problem, some substances more than others, but enforcement lead strategy does not seem to be working. Hang the dealers as they do in foreign lands – Thailand is drug free is it Donald?
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The demand for drugs is as old as the world itself, and will certainly continue long long after you or I cease to live. The idea that a substance can be ingested to establish a connection with a form of reality other than the one which exists is neither new nor specific to our culture. To suggest otherwise, or to think that it might be possible to eradicate this problem by the use of heavy handed measures is failing to comprehend what is more an unavoidable consequence of human nature, in my opinion, than an ill which can be eliminated by the imposition of increasingly punitive sanctions.
I respect the desire to appear to ‘mean business’, but I’m not too sure that some of those advocating harsher penalties are quite familiar with the concept of being in such a place, for any number of reasons, that the use of drugs represents the only viable option in the mind of a user. That is not to say that it is right, but it might be preferable to accept that as long as people have the means to “escape”, they will. Whether it is legal or illegal.
A regulated market would help to eradicate a huge number of the risks involved and socially destructive elements of that world. However, this will not happen, and going forward, those with power may feel fairly satisfied about the changes they have proposed and approved, but the reality is that the same vulnerable citizens they are seeking to protect will be continuing their old ways… only now they will be paying 3 to 4 times more to do so. In return they will receive a product which is almost certainly worse for their health, and the money will go solely towards furthering criminal purposes, rather than a portion going back into public funds as was previously the case.
Nothing will change as long as those with power are out of touch with the real significant elements of the problem.
I may be over simplifying this particular point, but it seems as though the law makers are dealing with a stereotypical, and very non-nuanced opinion of the issues, and rather than approaching them with any sensitivity to how they work in the real world, they seem to be applying principles in a way which is only going to hurt those involved.
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Well I was surprised at the mild response to my OPINION.I knew that I had put the cat amoung the pidgeons.Perhaps my opinion is biased by the fact that I know an 84year old lady,lovely person,a widow,who was pushing her shoppng assistant back from the shops when,in broad daylight,she was attacked by three young junkies,half beaton to death in her efforts to retain her purse,and left beaten,robbed,and left to die by these creatures who needed her pension to finance their craving for drugs.Luckily a car driver stopped and gave assistance to her,and she survived in body,but not in mind.And do you know what,there were more people involved in making excuses etc for the drug addicts,then there were concerned about the welfare of that old lady!And this is only one instance in the many that occur every day!
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I can see the arguments for comparing ‘legal’ highs to tobacco and alcohol, and can also see why making this comparison raises the question “why make legal highs illegal and not tobacco and alcohol?” as discussed by I L Page, Phil, Egghead and Nat amongst others over this and previous related threads.
I believe that if alcohol and tobacco were new discoveries, governments would be talking about making them illegal.
Just because we missed the boat by centuries regarding alcohol and tobacco, does it mean we should not be trying to stop substances such as Spice?
Also, I believe adding previously named ‘legal highs’ to the Misuse of Drugs Law should not simply be about criminalising drug users. The law provides a fall-back position, and a base line for all of the other work that should be done to aid those who might need help following addiction.
All that said, I can’t help wondering if certain substances that are currently completely illegal could be allowed for personal use in your own home. Trouble is, how could that be policed, and the ‘what-ifs’ involved in combining this with other legislation would no doubt produce some onerous judgements.
Hard cases make for bad law so they say, or maybe it would be more accurate in this case to say bad law makes hard cases.
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Those that continue to profit at will from the global market in “existing drugs of concern” have merely had the entrepreneurial initiative, as a direct consequence of global state mismanagement, to open up an ‘alternative investment market’ based on the results from their providing capital to explore the possibilities of expanding a trade in previously specialised, high-risk “emerging drugs of concern” products.
Like the finance industry boom which, despite a whole raft of standards, regulators, task-forces, overseers, auditors, guidelines and codes of practice, has caused a global recession/depression and saddled vulnerable innocents with hopeless or uncertain futures, the ‘war on drugs’ has allowed those ‘masters of their universes’ free rein to diversify in the pursuit of bigger profits.
Given the perennial exposure to, and availability of recreational drugs within all variants of human societies, would people not prefer that exposure to be directed towards those drugs that are understood through research, the risks therefore reduced by intelligent regulation?
The inclusion of all these ‘new’ drugs in the existing laws is unavoidable and logical, but the precedents have been set and the big drug money will push out products creating greater uncertainty and risk on new generations of consumers who have less education, and a greater desire to be ‘rebellious’.
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Donald
If the ‘junkies’ had been alcoholics would you be picketing the breweries?
Unfortunately a heroin addict needs to engage in constant aquisitive crime to fund the habit and in exchange receives opiates of unknown strength cut with a myriad undesirable substances.
Medical grade opiate is cheap, clean and relatively safe if administered in a controlled environment.
How would you feel about the State dishing out the drugs to the addicts Donald? Would this outrage you as it does the Daily Mail?
What we have now has failed, is still failing and has little hope of working in the future – but it keeps an awful lot of people in a job.
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Seems that my opening on “drug peddlers”has got bogged down with “drug addicts”,or do some of you have another name for these unfortunate creatures?And I stand by my guns on that 84 year old lady,her health,mental well-being is worth the necks of all the drug peddlers on this planet.And if anyone believes that the so called “soft” drugs being allowed would solve the problem,well!!!!!!!!Its like promotion,start “sniffing” then “smoking” and finish up on the hard stuff,but then,we live in a rich society,so can afford to keep these for the rest of their lives supplied with the things they love from our taxes!Just deduct this from the pensions of the clean living,hard working citizens of our society!If one had an outbreak of The Pest caused by rats one would stamp out the rats.Stamp out the drug peddlers,problem solved,but I know in my own mind that this is not going to happen,so we will continue to slide down the hill!Sad!
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Donald, I don’t think anyone disagrees that drug related crime needs to be dealt with. It is your outdated methodology, including capital punishment, that I disagree with.
Phrases like ‘stamp out’ and ‘pushers’ are just trigger words that politicians use, with no real meaning or substance.
Why don’t you have a real go at coming up with a solution that could realistically work?
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Dean
Why is Donald’s proposed methodology of capital punishment for drug peddlers [as opposed to addicts] so disagreeable? What do you propose is done with them? They can’t be rehabilitated like their “customers”.
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Bolan
Are you proposing that the people who run Bucktrouts (and other similar companies) are executed? Their products kill infintely more people than illegal drugs do. Why should they be treated any differently?
Or is it ok to sell drugs that kill an untold amount of people just because they are legal? What about the moral argument?
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@Bolan
I just find the idea of sending someone to their death for selling something that is banned by a government extremely disturbing. But then, I’m not a fan of the death penalty full stop.
Personally, I would legalise and regulate in order to take the product and money away from the ‘peddlers’.
Bolan, why can’t they be ‘rehabilitated’?
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Am saying my last on this subject,I enjoyed reading all views expressed,you may not believe it but really I’m a softy at heart,full of sympathy for the unfortunates of our world.I only hope the “nil tolerence to addictive drugs”prevails in our beautiful Guernsey!
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Except that there isn’t “nil tolerance to addictive drugs in our beautiful Guernsey” Donald, far from it.
Benson and Hedges anyone?
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Bolan
captial punishment for drug dealers what plant
are u on?if u said that about sex offenders
people who go out and murder fine.
the misuse of drugs act is not there to descrimanate all drugs which my cause a social problem fall under its ambit.
the ACMD is there to advise poloticians
on danderous or otherwise harmful drugs.
yet if the act was to be,used how it should.
booze and fags would be a class b substance
and cannabis a class c.
care to argue about that Donald Remfrey please
im all ears.
look in the press week in week out how many cannabis users do u see each week for fighting round town,swearing at police,urinateing in
the street etc etc?
how many people do u see in each week with
drink related offences?
now correct me if im wrong but does this not constitute a social problem?
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Donald Remfrey,
Have you ever drunk more than two or three alcoholic drinks in the course of an evening?
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albi – I’m not on any plant. Odd question.
Come back to me in English and I’ll see whether any of your hitherto incomprehensible ramblings merit a response.
Phil – same comments you’ve used on VDI re Bucktrouts. But no, it wouldn’t seem very fair to top those guys just for acting legally and not robbing/threatening/killing folks in order to stock up their outlets. Would it?
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Bolan, was my question written well enough to merit a response?
And no one said anything about “robbing/threatening/killing”, we are talking about the death penalty for specifically “peddling” (growing to like this word btw).
Donald, glad to hear you are a softy at heart and you sympathise with all the unfortunates (except ‘peddlers’, who must be killed) of this world, me too.
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Bolan
I see, it’s not the thousands of deaths that matter, it’s the legality. That’s ok then……..
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Anyone see the laughable BBC news item about Mephedrone in Guernsey? It’s a bit bizarre that they seized £30K of mephedrone the day the cameras were with customs….yet we’ve yet to hear of any arrests?
Surely the BBC doesn’t have to stoop so low for a story these days?
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Rob Prow does make me laugh.
“We have NO drug problem in Guernsey”
Having to pay millions of pounds a year for your department that employs dozens of customs officers, would indicate that there is.
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