Probe into legal highs
Thursday 4th September 2008, 2:59PM BST.
AN investigation into stalls selling legal drugs at the Jersey Live festival has been launched by the Health department.
Assistant Health Minister Jim Perchard has called for an investigation after hearing the observations of a senior healthcare professional at the event.
On Monday the JEP revealed that some festival-goers were tak-en to hospital following adverse reactions to so-called ‘legal highs’.
Figures released this morning by A&E show that three 15-year-olds, a 14-year-old and one 17-year-old were among a number of people treated in hospital for mixing alcohol with Spice, a substitute for cannabis — all five under the legal age limit for smoking.
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I notice the intersting editing of that article – all three under the legal age to smoke. I would add that none of them should have been drinking alcohol either. Clearly one of the stalls selling alcohol was actually breaking the law in selling to minors – were they shut down? Probably not!
It’s clear that Spice will be banned as “dangerous” whilst our politicians will continue to turn a blind eye to the dreadful effects of binge drinking and resulting street violence. In my experience “mellow” folk rarely cause such problems! Hey ho!
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haha this is hilarious. I saw plenty of youngsters stumbling around at jerseylive drunk as anyone else, and nothings done.
Its funny how you can do more harm to yourself by drinking alcohol and smoking spice that you can by actualy smoking cannabis, which is illegal. Spice is a blend of crap, I know people that have missed days of work because it makes you so ill.. but what choice do people have?
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How can you say “under the legal age limit for smoking” and not point out that they were under the age for drinking? It’s the drinking that probably made them ill.
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Surely the best thing to do here is to give it legal status by exesively taxing it.(if they eat it will it be GST free soon ?)
Then all those idiots who want to destroy their bodies and minds can do so with the same knowledge that tobaco and alcohol users have that if they end up in hospital they have at least contributed to the cost of healing themselves.
At the moment the only winners are the people selling the stuff.
The poor old taxpayer once again picks up the bill for the fallout.
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“Figures released this morning by A&E show that three 15-year-olds, a 14-year-old and one 17-year-old were among a number of people treated in hospital for mixing alcohol with Spice, a substitute for cannabis — all five under the legal age limit for smoking”
Oops, also under legal age of drinking… and how many kids end up in AnE every weekend for drinking and getting their stomach pumped! How many over the age of 18 were admitted for mixing?
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It’s all very well targeting the people that sell alcohol and drugs to kids (and I fully back this) but we need to start punishing the kids hard as well. They know what they’re doing is against the law and they are old enough to know what that means. Telling them it’s against the law and then not punishing them gives out mixed messages.
Drunk, high kids are a burden on our health system and must be made to realise this and made to pay for it. Not that it’s just kids either!
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Ok this is all bs to me,we as self enlighteninpepole who enjoy doing drugs are victimsed each and every day. Alchol does more damage to are communitys than some drugs (NOTICE I SAY SOME DRUGS). Since i stopped drinking all i do is weed and trippy drugs the results are: i no longer end up in court for breach of the peace i read books and try to learn interesting things. M whole life style has changed im more freindly. Fighting annoys me and i steer clear away from it and go smoke a nice joint. So if you all want to ban legal highs go ahead all your doing is adding a hell of a lot more substances to the controlled list that in my eyes is impossible to control ha ha. You cant stop drugs plain and simple but you can stop the money going to terroists and orgainsed crimanials. If weed was legal i reckon crimanials wouldnt get £120 a week of my money and thats just me 1 single person. So goverment stop helping criminals raise money and regualte drugs not ban them.
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Lets face the truth here,legal highs,their users and their suppliers have been laughing in the face of the government for years now.
Legal highs generally claim to be safer alternatives to illegal drugs,this is a false statemnt for a start and gives the illusion that they are okay,some even give the impression of being good for you…They make me laugh!
This industry is worth millions and is not regulated,products are not tested by government health officials for safety or purity.
Nearly all legal highs are in effect,drugs sold to alter states of consciousness.In our society we have the fall out from illegal drug abuse,do we really want to add to that misery?
Legal highs are becoming ever increasingly popular,it`s time for the government to act responsibly and stop burying it`s head in the sand to this ever increasing problem that grows in the shadows.
Users of leagl highs argue that it`s the minority of users who get physically and mentally ill from them that are the problem and not the drugs,when in truth most of the legal high users will one time or another over indulge and suffer from adverse effects,you see them posting these things all the time on the legal high forums on the internet.Their arguments are consistently flawed by their own contradictions.
It`s overdue time to clean up this industry.
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