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Landmark legal highs bill backed by North East MPs

A landmark bill banning legal highs drugs, which will be brought into effect in the spring, has the backing of North East MPs.

The new bill − the Psychoactive Substances Act – has received royal assent, which means the proposed legislation has now become law. MPs believe that the act is an important step in the fight against legal high drugs and that it will help to protect children from their dangers.

Ronnie Campbell, MP for Blyth, said: “I’ve found that kids were buying this stuff, just going into shops and buying it, and there was no way to stop them. There was a big outcry to get them out of shops, but there was profit to be made, so it kept going. These legal highs set children on the path to drugs, so it’s a good idea to curtail them.”

Mr Campbell warned about the dangers of the legal highs back in August 2015. Following the hospitalisation of three teenagers from Blyth who had been experimenting with legal highs, he stated that children were using the substances under the mistaken belief that they were safe simply because they were legal.

Northumbria Police has been taking action against the sale of legal highs by using its existing powers to raid shops suspected of selling packets containing class A and class B drugs as ingredients and seizing any it found.

Its powers also enabled Community Protection Notices and Closure Orders to be issued to stop the sale of legal highs.

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