UK - Legal highs causing 'violent and bizarre' behaviour are banned
A “legal high” which emulates the effects of cocaine is being banned because of fears over “bizarre and violent behaviour” linked with the drug.
The substance ethylphenidate, which is marketed as “Gogaine” and “Burst”, will become temporarily banned at midnight to give Home Office experts time to consider a permanent ban.
• Drug users begin injecting 'legal highs'
• Drugs laws play 'cat and mouse' with creators of legal highs, says senior government adviser
• Ban legal highs from music festivals, says Home Office
Four other similar drugs will also be made illegal at the same time.
It means that anyone caught supplying or manufacturing the drugs will face up to 14 years’ imprisonment on conviction, while police will be able to confiscate the drug from anyone found in possession.
A Home Office spokesman said: “Ethylphenidate, one of the drugs being banned, has emerged as an alternative to cocaine and is sold using the street names ‘Gogaine’ and ‘Burst’.
“Users have been known to inject the drug, putting themselves at risk of blood-borne disease and infection.”
Like many other so-called legal highs, Gogaine is marketed as “not for human consumption” in a bid to get around drug laws.
It is also marketed as “Nopaine”, “Fake cocaine”, “Banshee Dust” and “Evoke”, at a price of about £15 for a gram.
Sales of “Burst” had presented a particular problem in Scotland, according to a report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the Government’s official drugs advisers.
“Ethylphenidate-based products are a growing issue in Edinburgh and their use is associated with bizarre and violent behaviour,” it said.
“Police Scotland reported that related practices include: communal injecting, users injecting each other due to rapid onset of effects and loss of fine motor control, needle sharing, injecting in unsanitary environments, high-risk injecting (in the neck and groin), and preparation with citric acid to improve water solubility, which additionally increases the corrosive nature of the substance.”
It added: “Avon and Somerset and Devon and Cornwall Police have had similar reports.”
Taunton had seen particular problems with injection of legal highs, which are also known as novel psychoactive substances (NPS).
“Throughout 2014 the market town of Taunton in Somerset has been hit with an epidemic of NPS injecting with all products originating from the one head shop located in the main High Street,” said the ACMD report.
“The injecting was happening in open public places including public toilets and users were abandoning their injecting works on the surrounding ground resulting on one occasion with a local six-year old receiving a needle stick injury.
“In one clear up day in Taunton town centre, over 200 needles were recovered.”
The four other substances banned by the new order are 3,4-dichloromethylphenidate, methylnaphthidate, isopropylphenidate and propylphenidate.
Legal highs causing 'violent and bizarre' behaviour are banned - Telegraph
