A new legal high goes on sale every week, says EU drugs agency | The Guardian

New “legal highs” and other synthetic drugs are appearing on the market at the rate of one a week, the EU’s drug agency has warned.

The Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said 49 new “psychoactive” substances were officially notified for the first time in 2011 through an EU early-warning system.

“This represents the largest number of substances ever reported in a single year, up from 41 substances reported in 2010 and 24 reported in 2009,” said the agency.

[…] “We have rapidly growing numbers of psychoactive drugs on the market, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the police to identify the drugs they’re finding… Just adding a drug to the long list already controlled won’t make much difference… The police and forensics are under too much pressure already to be able to offer much deterrent to potential users… We are deluding ourselves if we think that using existing controls like temporary bans will solve the problem,” said Roger Howard of the UK drugs policy commission, an independent organisation providing drugs policy analysis.

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