Watch out for the new wave of legal highs

The legal label doesn’t mean that it’s certified, pure or tested, it simply means it hasn’t been classified as dangerous yet


I suppose it had to happen.

When the use of cocaine and heroin began to tail off and everyone got excited thinking drug addiction was on the wane, a new set of drugs moved in to fill the vacuum.

And if anything these new drugs are worse. Their side effects are awful and sometimes they inflict serious damage on vital organs.

Drug takers, especially young ones, truly believe the drugs are harmless because they hide behind the label of legal highs.

If a drug is sold with the tag legal it’s got to be OK, hasn’t it? No, it hasn’t.

The legal label doesn’t mean that it’s certified, pure or tested.

It simply means it hasn’t been classified as a dangerous drug yet.

Around 700 websites will happily supply about 30 different types of legal high to anyone without giving health warnings.

It’s impossible to keep track of online paths of distribution.

And many of these so-called legal highs pose a threat because what they contain is constantly changing.

The same drug may be made from different ingredients from one month to the next.

Therefore, no one knows what they’re taking when they use drugs like Ivory Wave, an amphetamine, or GBL, a paint stripper.

Dr Owen Bowden-Jones, head of the Club Drug Clinic at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, says the profile of drug takers has now changed. They’re often professional people with higher disposable incomes.

And it’s high time that the medical profession and NHS kept pace with all these changes.

Ketamine, a class C illegal drug, is a case in point. It’s been on the scene for ages and everybody thinks they know all about it.

But ketamine is a powerful anaesthetic that is occasionally used on human beings, but most commonly to knock out horses. It has a hideous array of side effects.

The body becomes numb and paralysed, there may be sickness and vomiting, coordination goes and simple tasks become impossible.

Terrifying hallucinations occur and limbs feel as though they’re growing and shrinking.

The hallucinations seem as if they’ll never stop and there’s a feeling of being close to death.

Now we’ve discovered that ketamine can actually attack the bladder and destroy its lining.

People are turning up at the Club Drug Clinic in intense pain with blood in their urine.

But people seeking new highs will still seek these drugs out.