London ambulance callouts double due to legal highs

Emergency ambulance callouts in London have more than doubled every year since 2013, with the cause attributed to the substances formerly known as legal highs.

During the financial year 2013-2014, the London Ambulance Service (LAS) was called out to 50 incidents. During the following financial year of 2014-15, this number rose to 129, and for 2015-16 to 271. New psychoactive substances (NPS), the official name for legal highs, were banned in a blanket ban in May this year. During 2015, they were identified as a causal link in more than 100 deaths throughout the UK. They were also identified as the cause of a significant rise in the number of violent assaults carried out in UK prisons.

The Angelus Foundation, a charity that attempts to alert people to the dangers of using new psychoactive substances, said the increased number of ambulance call-outs is a problem that is escalating. A spokesman for the charity said that synthetic drugs, such as Spice, are most likely to affect the homeless and convicts. He said, “There [is] a switch amongst homeless people from substances like heroin and crack and alcohol to Spice because it’s cheaper and more potent.”

Before the new legislation, entitled the Psychoactive Substances Act, the YMCA warned that two-thirds of young people would probably continue using the substances. Denise Hatton, Chief Executive, has called for unbiased information and advice about new psychoactive substances, along with the provision of specialist support to supplement the ban.