Newcastle lives ‘in danger’ after legal high ban delayed
Newcastle City Council has slammed the government for halting a legal highs ban
Newcastle City Council has slammed the government for halting a legal highs ban.
The Psychoactive Substances Act, which bans the production and sale of anything deemed a legal high, was supposed to come in next week (April 6th).
But a Home Office spokesperson has confirmed to Metro Radio that the commencement date for the legislation has been shelved for now. They’ve yet to confirm a new date, but still expect it to be in the spring.
An epidemic hit Newcastle in January, with more than 260 legal high related callouts for the North East Ambulance Service.
The City Council have spearheaded a campaign for legislation to help them tackle the sale and production of substances and say it’s disappointing to see a delay.
Cllr Stephen Powers, Cabinet Secretary, said:
“Lives are in danger here in Newcastle and across the whole of the North East. They need to get their act together, they need to be supporting us on our ongoing war against so called legal highs and give us the real tools that we need to ensure that we can remove their sale that is so freely available in our communities.”
“Any sort of backtrack on that and confusion that’s now going to come out from this is real worry. We need to double our efforts to continue to educate people that these substances are still dangerous and a delay in banning them isn’t a delay thinking that they might be safe.”
“We have led the way nationally on calling on the government to introduce effective legislation to help us tackle so called legal highs and we were incredible pleased to see when the government finally introduced such an act but really disappointed to see that it’s been delayed further. What is a consequence of that is literally putting lives of people here in Newcastle in danger by delaying this act.”
For more help and information on legal highs, visit: