ACMD To Give Advice On 'Legal Highs'

The increasing availability and potential harm of 'legal highs’'are one of the key priorities of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) as set out in their annual report published today.

The report also looks at the work of the council between April 2008 and March 2009. Within the period the ACMD undertook numerous reviews and gave advice on classification of; cannabis, MDMA (Ecstasy), GBL, BZP and 24 various steroids.

The government accepted the council’s recommendations to bring GBL, BZP and 24 various steroids under control within the Misuse of Drugs Act.

These reviews also contained numerous recommendations on research and health protection measures.

"One of our key priorities for the coming year will be investigating the increasing threat of legal highs," Professor David Nutt, Chair of the ACMD said.

"We have already started this work and recently gave the government advice on the synthetic cannabinoids known as SPICE.

"The annual report shows the wide range of work the council has looked at relating to various drugs and the harms they cause. In the vast majority of these occasions the government has committed to implementing the recommendations we made."

He continued: "It is important that we remain at the forefront of managing these emerging trends and the harms of substance misuse. We need to get across that some of these legal highs pose a real danger.

"By looking at the evidence to see the harms caused by the various chemical compounds that make up these legal highs we will be able to give advice to the government on a scientific basis, allowing them to legislate and remain ahead of the game."

Correspondance published in the annual report show the agreed priorities the ACMD and the Home Office recently agreed on. These include giving advice to the Home Secretary in the summer of 2009 on synthetic cannabis known as SPICE; looking at the chemical compounds of legal highs and their effects; trends and effects of poly drug users and enhancing the drug early warning mechanisms used to detect possible drugs that cause harm.

(JM)