A Legal Low Another month, another daft government over-reaction to "legal highs".  

So, the government has had the genius idea of banning “all mind-altering drugs unless specifically mentioned”. Obviously, the specifically mentioned drugs are substances such as tobacco and alcohol; you know, the really safe ones with no deaths associated with use?

As ever, what we’ve got here is another knee jerk reaction that’s the usual ill conceived and ill considered legislation we’ve become so used to from successive governments. This one takes the cake, though, as even the government's own drug policy advisors in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs think this will be an unenforceable dud.

Back in 2009 the last government decided they didn't much like the old ACMD going "off message" about drugs and staged high profile sackings. Most of the 2009 committee resigned in disgust, to be replaced by a more pliable bunch of yes men. Jump forward 6 years and the same yes men are warning against the proposed legislation. One really would think alarm bells would start ringing, yes?

Well actually, no.

Mike Penning, the government minister responsible for all this nonsense says he’s “determined to protect young people from the dangers of so-called legal highs and target those who profit from their trade". Noble words and a noble aim, but I’m having a real problem working out how making these things illegal is going to achieve this. I mean, let's face it, banning all the "old school" substances hasn't exactly been a roaring success, has it?

It’s pretty well known that banning stuff doesn’t stop people wanting it, and in fact might make a certain type of person more determined to seek out and try said stuff. What happens then is that rather than protecting young people from legal highs, it actually criminalises them, thus putting them in a situation where they’ll have a drug-related criminal record if they’re busted with any of them (and inevitably, busts will happen). And the way things seem to be going, having a criminal record for illegal substances is almost as harmful as quite a few of the substances themselves.

I’ve said it before but – at the risk of sounding like a stuck record – I’m going to say it again. As it seems to be hugely en vogue at the moment, let’s take synthetic cannabis as an example. One way to stop the synthetic cannabis market right in its tracks would be to legalise and regulate the real thing, as is happening elsewhere in the world. I did little online research into this recently. In all, it took me about ten minutes to discover that in Colorado there were clusters of poisonings and hospitalisations related to synthetic dope from 2010 or so (when synthetic dope first appeared on the market) right up to 2012 when the state took the decision to legalise “real” weed. Almost immediately, the problem with synthetic dope ceased and the market disappeared. What does this tell us?

Well, it tells me that a) people thought that “legal” synthetic cannabis was actually the same as the illegal varieties (it isn’t); it tells me that b) people thought “legal” equals “safe” (it doesn’t); it tells me that c) many people really, really want to get stoned, but don't necessarily want to break the law, hence the popularity of the "legal" varieties of dope; and it tells me that d) given the choice between “real”, legal dope and some crap cooked up in a factory somewhere in the Far East, the Real McCoy wins hands down.

It's not rocket science! When will our lawmakers just wake up to what's staring them right in the face?