Police raid Canterbury shops to seize 'legal highs'

Police officers approaching the Skunkworks in Canterbury this morning

Police and Trading Standards officers have targeted shops selling 'legal highs' in a series of raids carried out this morning.

Eighteen shops across the South East, including two in Canterbury, were visited by officers, as part of a crackdown on the sale of dangerous substances. Over 1,300 products were seized by officers, in the largest raid of its kind in UK history.

The two shops targeted in Canterbury, the UK Skunkworks on the King's Mile and 'Third Eye' on St Peter's Street, have both argued in the past that any dangerous materials they sell are clearly labelled as 'not for human consumption'.

But, according to the Kent County Council's Trading Standards Manager Mark Rolfe, that excuse just doesn't cut it. Saying his group were responding to "messages from the public urging us to see what we can do", Mr Rolfe said legal highs had already killed 3 people in Kent, with 68 dying across the country in one year alone.
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"The fact is, these items are only sold for one reason, and that is consumption.

"Everything that is sold needs to be safe, and these products just aren't safe."

Ian Gilmore, Medway Council Trading Standards Officer, said: "We want the shops to know that we are prepared to take robust enforcement action to ensure they are operating within the law. These are not legal highs, they are lethal highs."

Officers have confiscated some legal highs from the Canterbury properties for testing, while the rest of the products will be kept on the property, but safely sealed. Trading Standards groups are investigating claims that these shops sell ‘unsafe products'. To comply with consumer law, traders must be aware exactly what is in each of the products they sell, and what risks could be associated with these ingredients. Any businesses that fail to clearly display all ingredients on their packaging could face prosecution.

The raids have been welcomed by those who have lost people to legal highs; Karen Audino, whose 20-year-old son Jimmy died after taking synthetic cannabis from a head shop, said: "Anything that protects people and stops families like mine from being torn apart by these so called legal highs is a good thing."

Kent Police Chief Inspector Lee Russell said: ‘We believe new psychoactive substances pose serious health risks to anyone who uses them.

"Just because people have been able to buy something legally, does not always mean that it is necessarily safe for human consumption and what worries us greatly is that no one knows precisely what each individual packet contains."

The raids took place at around 11am; just when the shops were opening to the public.

So-called 'Head Shops' have long been a controversial subject in Canterbury. In 2012, two young men in Canterbury, Hugo Wenn and Daniel Lloyd drowned after getting high on the then-legal substance 'methoxetamine'.

Canterbury and Whitstable MP Julian Brazier has called the sale of legal highs 'an abhorrent trade', and actively campaigned against their sale.

Members of staff at the Canterbury Skunkworks refused to comment.

http://www.canterburytimes.co.uk 06/07/2014