Island to ban legal drug imports

Users of legal recreational drugs will be banned from importing their own supplies into Guernsey, the Health and Social Service minister has said.
The States banned the commercial importation of the herbal drugs in April following health concerns.
More than £400,000 has been spent so far this year on sending about 30 users to the UK for treatment.
Deputy Hunter Adam said a problem was a perception that the products were safe, but that has not been proven.
He said: "There is unknown content in these 'herbal' drugs - you've got unknown effect and you've got unknown harm.

They are either going very manic or depressive and becoming psychotic Deputy Hunter Adam

"Now we're not calling them legal highs, we're calling them 'emerging drugs of concern' because that is what they are."
He said the ban on personal importation would be in place shortly as legislation is going through to stop the "loophole that just makes it commercial".
Deputy Adam said the worse effect was psychosis: "Mental problems in their behaviour and their perception of their behaviour and how they are coping with life in general.
"In fact they are not coping, they are either going very manic or depressive and becoming psychotic in manner and behaviour towards other people.
"It's a wide spectrum of mental problems they're experiencing due to the effect of drugs."
He said it was addition strain when budgets are tight: "We have a budget for off-island treatment, if it suddenly increases by £500,000 (his estimate of the spend across the whole of the year) on one group you can understand how it will go over budget." (from BBC)

About time....

Totally agree with u GD..........

http://www.thisisguernsey.com/2009/10/29/400k-legal-highs-bill/

What I don't understand is how come the shop just along from the Randy Paddle is still selling legal highs. I thought that had been banned a long time ago?

The shop opposite me is closed and is now doing 'Home Deliveries' under the name of 'Mr Green'!!!!!

technophobe wrote:What I don't understand is how come the shop just along from the Randy Paddle is still selling legal highs. I thought that had been banned a long time ago?

I heard that it was all changed....are they not doing tanning booths now...or something similar?!?!?!

karma wrote:The shop opposite me is closed and is now doing 'Home Deliveries' under the name of 'Mr Green'!!!!!

How appropriate...lol....

No, definitely still selling at least one legal high, Top Draw I think it's called. A young lad I know was coming out of there the other day and told me that it was pretty much the same as spice, but just a different name.

Surely Customs must realise that it's still happening?

technophobe wrote:No, definitely still selling at least one legal high, Top Draw I think it's called. A young lad I know was coming out of there the other day and told me that it was pretty much the same as spice, but just a different name.

Surely Customs must realise that it's still happening?

That ( top draw ) stuff is made locally.

Banning legal highs is going to do nothing but harm. I am a regular user of legals and ill stand up and say that i am not going to stop using them just because its illegal. If they wanna make an example out of perfectly good people that just wanna have a good time let them cuz ill be laughing if get put in prison for importing some reserch chemicals and herbal incenece. No matter what people are always going to have addictions. Whether its legals, illegals, alcohol, caffine or even food your taxes are gunna go on treating there addictions. All your doing is making criminals out of normally good people. All ill say is you'll be spending all peoples taxes on our up keep in prison instead of our treatment.

Hey Charli, the legal high certainly hasn't helped your spelling and punctuation.
The shame is that you think it is acceptable for the tax payer to pay for either your upkeep in prison or your health bills. I don't mind supporting the cost to put you inside but take responsibility and pay for your own health bills.

Spelling and punctuation does not define a person or have
any impact on their personality, the point gets across regardless.
You’re stereotyping me as stupid because I take legal highs.
I was actually educated in a private school not top of the year but above
average. I’m just not brilliant at English.
Anyway this is a forum....come on eh.

It is not the substance that makes a person an addict; it is
the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are definitely more alcohol addicts
in this country than there are narcotics addicts.
You just don’t hear allot about the people that take drugs
sensibly because they like to keep it quite because of the bad publicity. Bad
news always attracts more attention that good news its human nature. Same as you don’t hear about people drinking
sensibly because they don’t cause you any problems...
I’m just trying to get my point across because not everyone
that takes drugs is scummy, jobless and stupid which is what we are being
portrayed as.
I think it’s unfair to remove something that so many people
enjoy.
People like me who don’t enjoy drinking have to revert to
getting our substance of people who are charging ridiculous prices and cutting
it with good knows what, to have a good weekend and at the end of the day all
we are doing is altering our state of mind which is all alcohol does. Ok I don’t
know what effect it’s going to have on me in the future but I’m and adult
should I not be allowed the right to choose. Nobody forces drugs on you, it is
your choice whether to take them or not.

Regarding you statement on the tax payer having to fork out
for legal high users; tax payers money is being spent on treatment for
alcoholics, smokers etc its part of a community.

Charli, thanks for the reply. At least you have made a point in a manner which is not aggressive or abusive, so well done, I do not mean that in a condescending way.
I never assumed you were scummy or jobless, stupid is a different matter. Not stupid as ignorant or uneducated but stupid as in using something that can cause you harm and you acknowledge that this could happen.
You do not need to get drunk or drugged up to enjoy yourself in fact some of the best times I have had has been totally sober in the company of drunks, just sit and watch really funny.

Good post Charli you are correct , you are right about about the drink bit especially i have been around town on a Friday /Saturday night over the last few months and have seen what drink does to some of the youngsters, At least with Legal highs invariably the person,s taken it are in the comfort of their own homes and not out fighting.

Charli, an excellent post and one that I agree with wholeheartedly.

Plimmerton, an utterly feeble response. One minute you're ridiculing Charli's grammar and saying you're happy to pay for him/her to be in prison, the next you're patronising him/her (despite your protestation of "not being condescending"). Can you not accept that people wish to alter their state of mind every now and again? And that some people are not able to use alcohol to do this due to various reasons (allergy, addiction, a dislike of it etc)? For thousands of years people have sought to "get high" in one way or another, and it isn't going to stop just because a bunch of idiots make it illegal.

And the biggest joke of all is that alcohol causes more problems than all illegal drugs / "legal highs" put together. Where's the sense in that?

Techno', let me explain, read Charli's first post, he/she states "All ill say is you'll be spending all peoples taxes on our up keep in prison instead of our treatment"

This indicates that as a tax payer I have a choice of two options if the drugs are made illegal. Because Charli will still take them I can either.
1/. Cover his/her costs for prison.
2/. Cover his/her medical costs.

From where I am sat if a user gets ill from taking an illegal substance knowing full well that the substance could make him ill but goes ahead then the user should take responsibility of paying his own med' bills and I in turn would be happy for my taxes to pay for prison but why should my taxes pay for med' care if someone is stupid enough to take illegal drugs knowing they could get ill. You pay your money and take your chance but do not expect someone to bale you out. I can accept that someone may want to change their state of mind but perhaps you cannot see the stupidity of doing it.

As for alcohol you are quite right it does cause more problems but it is legal and is a point that has been discussed before, if it was invented today it would be banned. That is something we have to live with.

All about Charli

Gender: ...................................This means that Charli is female!

Zodiac:
Chinese zodiac:
Number of posts: 2
Birthday: 1991-04-02
Age: 18
Location: guernsey
Registration date: 2008-10-02


Hi Charli.good point.....

to the forum

Cheers for all the response is really good to see that people understand my point of you as all i can see at the moment is negative press.
Also id like to point out that the article in the press claiming to have spent so much money rehabilitation is a load of bull**** and im not basing that on assumption i am basing it on fact.
There is no rehabilitation facilitys for people suffering from legal substance addiction.


Quote - "From where I am sat if a user gets ill from taking an illegal substance
knowing full well that the substance could make him ill but goes ahead
then the user should take responsibility of paying his own med' bills" - Then should alcoholics not have to pay for there medical bills? Cant have one rule for us and another for them.

Charli wrote:
Then should alcoholics not have to pay for there medical bills? Cant have one rule for us and another for them.

completely agree charli, what about smokers, overweight peeps aswell, maybe even traffic accident casualtys whom were speeding etc etc etc..

Spirit wrote:LINKEY

Guarentee they dont take people with legal high addictions. There is no help for it.

Quote - "As for alcohol you are quite right it does cause more problems but it
is legal and is a point that has been discussed before, if it was
invented today it would be banned. That is something we have to live
with."

The reason alcohol is legal is because it is taxable same as ciggerettes.
The government makes so much from them that they wont ban it because they would loose stupid amounts of money.
If legal highs were taxed you could make back the money spent on treatment for addicts and have double that spare.

Following the previous posts from Charli I think she should take a look at this link and then ask "is the chance worth it"

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Legal-Highs-Hester-Stewart-Died-Taking-GBL-Mum-Maryon-Angry-Home-Office-Not-Banning-Drugs-Faster/Article/200912415506784?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_3&lid=ARTICLE_15506784_Legal_Highs%3A_Hester_Stewart_Died_Taking_GBL_Mum_Maryon_Angry_Home_Office_Not_Banning_Drugs_Faster

The first known death from a drug popular with clubbers has emerged the day the government banned it.
Toxicologists in London found that a 25-year-old man died hours after taking GBL on its own while out clubbing.
Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, they said the man was found unconscious by his partner who had tried to resuscitate him.
The drug is among a list of so-called "legal highs" banned on Wednesday amid growing evidence of their harm.
The report in the journal details how the man had been previously fit and healthy - but had returned home from a night out in 2008 "acting strangely".
When the ambulance arrived, the crew continued attempts to resuscitate the man. There were further attempts to revive him when he reached hospital, but he died from a prolonged cardiac arrest.
Writing before the ban came into force, the team said that the man's post-mortem revealed the presence of GBL in his body - but no sign of alcohol or any other drug.
Once in the body, chemical reactions turn GBL into another drug, GHB, which has been banned since 2003.
The post-mortem found that the quantity of GBL in the man's body was consistent with the amount seen in previous fatal overdoses involving GHB.
Student death
Dr Paul Dargan, of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London, wrote: "There are numerous reported fatalities related to GHB ingestion.

Student Hester Stewart died after taking GBL and alcohol

"However, although there has been media coverage of potential GBL-related fatalities in the UK, there have only been three previous reports of GBL-related fatality, two in Germany and one in the USA.
"We report here the first case of a fatality related to isolated GBL toxicity in the UK, which we feel supports the case for classifying GBL similar to that of GHB."
GBL is used in the chemical industry and appears in cleaning products, solvents and paints.
The doctors wrote that medical records showed that there had been recent increases in the number of patients suffering overdoses caused by GBL - almost certainly caused by the fact that GHB had been made a controlled drug in 2003.
The Home Office decision to ban GBL and other "legal highs" came after a recommendation from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and a campaign by the family of 21-year-old Hester Stewart.
The Brighton medical student died in April after taking GBL and drinking alcohol. Her parents lobbied the government to ban the drug saying they could not understand why it was banned for personal use in the US and Canada, but not in the UK. (from BBC)

Alcohol and smoking causes deaths 100's of them, dont see them geting banned

Can't afford the revenue loss,can they.
Ban alchohol and fags.legalise pot.Still some people will react badly etc BUT Less hospitalisation,less fights,less hassle.