Legal high training offered by Maidstone charity

A Maidstone drug and alcohol charity (CRI) is providing training to addiction and health professionals on the misuse of legal highs to deal with the growing abuse problem.

CRI in Maidstone offers support to people who abuse legal substances; however, health workers at the charity are coming across increasing numbers of people who have been affected by the taking of legal high drugs.

Management at CRI hopes that the new training will provide the requisite skills and information to enable the professionals to support users of the legal high drugs. Steve Fearns, spokesman for the charity, said: “Some of the tips we offer include avoiding using NPS if you’ve got mental health issues, to exercise caution when trying something new, and not being on your own. Also, if you are going to use a legal high, don’t take it all in one go and instead try to spread it out.”

The CRI has already hosted two training sessions educating around 260 people about legal highs, with the professionals including police officers, probation workers, staff from prisons, and community wardens. Attendees at the sessions commented that they now feel more aware of the current trends regarding the use of legal highs and the issues surrounding them.

The training sessions follow on from police raids carried out on shops in the Kent area believed to be selling legal highs, which resulted in 133 samples of the drugs being taken ‒ the largest number from any UK county.