Shropshire Star

Government set to ban legal highs that killed Shropshire man

Legal highs like the one that killed Telford trainee bricklayer Jamie Penn will be outlawed as part of measures announced in today's Queen's Speech.

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The new Conservative Government wants to ban drugs that can currently be sold openly.

Mr Penn died a year ago after buying the legal designer drug 4,4-DMAR in the county. His sister Charlotte Delo said today: "I am delighted that there is to be a ban on legal highs as this can stop people buying them locally."

She added: "They are dangerous and can kill."

Ministers are considering a blanket ban on the drugs, similar to the one introduced in Ireland in 2010.

Mr Penn, 29, died after buying the drug at an address in Shrewsbury in May last year.

The night before he had taken ecstasy, and the two drugs are thought to have reacted.

Mrs Delo said she was now dedicating her time to campaigning against legal highs by highlighting their dangers.

She and her family are organising a fundraising football tournament on Sunday to coincide with the one-year anniversary of Jamie's death.

Research by the Centre for Social Justice think-tank last year found that legal highs – also known as "new psychoactive substances" – were linked to 97 deaths in 2012, compared to 12 in 2009.

Hospital admissions from legal highs rose by 56 per cent in the same period.

The think-tank warned that, on current trends, deaths related to the drugs could be higher than heroin by next year – at about 400 fatalities a year.

Earlier this month, an inquest found that father-of-three Thaker Hafid, from Cardiff, died after taking a legal high bought online from China that was five times stronger than heroin.

Legal highs are commonly sold online and in the high street in "head shops", where an assortment of drug-taking paraphernalia is sold alongside legal high powders, pills and liquids.

Authorities have attempted to control legal highs through temporary bans on the specific chemical compound of the drug.

But manufacturers attempt to get round bans by altering the chemical make-up of the drugs to create a new substance.

Peter Fleming, of the Local Government Association, said people were dying and getting serious mental health problems from them.

He said: "These are not safe drugs and should not be sold on the high street."

A spokesman for the LGA said that councils spend £830 million a year on tackling drug and alcohol misuse, with the use of legal highs being seen as a growing problem.

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