Britain’s scientific advisors on illegal drugs have called for a multi-pronged attack on the growing ‘legal highs’ problem, including funding for improved research and forensics developments, just days after American authorities clamped down on them.
Although a number of ‘novel psychoactive substances’ have been banned in the UK – most famously mephedrone, now linked to 42 deaths – chemicals mimicking the effects of illegal drugs are still available, says the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in a new report.
“The advent of novel psychoactive substances has changed the face of the drug scene remarkably and with rapidity,” write Les Iversen and Simon Gibbons, the chairman of the ACMD and the chairman of the working group on this subject. “The range of substances now available, their lack of consistency and the potential harms users are exposed to are now complex and multi-faceted.”
The existing Misuse of Drugs Act bans specific drugs and also some generic chemicals. However some analogues of banned drugs were not covered by the original generic scope, notes the ACMD’s new report, and thus they can still be sold.
To aid in use of the act developments in analytical capability, forensic detection and chemical standards should be supported, suggests the council. (See Nature’s story Chemical shortage hampers ‘legal high’ work for more on this topic.) In addition, resources should be dedicated to work on novel psychoactive substances, and the UK’s research councils should be pushed in this direction, the report recommends.
The council also suggests that Britain could look at a version of America’s ‘Analogue Act’, which could make analogues of already banned drug automatically illegal. This would deal with one major problem, where labs simply tweak the chemicals enough to produce a new legal version as soon as a drug is banned.
Just days ago the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) moved to make possessing and selling three ‘legal highs’, including mephedrone, illegal.
“This action demonstrates our commitment to keeping our streets safe from these and other new and emerging drugs that have decimated families, ruined lives, and caused havoc in communities across the country,” said DEA administrator Michele Leonhart (press release). “These chemicals pose a direct and significant threat, regardless of how they are marketed, and we will aggressively pursue those who attempt their manufacture and sale.”
Image: photo by David Ooms via flickr under creative commons.