May 2016
Featured in this insight: Medical & healthcare
Survey finds 2 in 3 youths who consume legal highs will ignore future ban: A recent survey by a national youth charity, YMCA, has discovered that approximately 2 in 3 young people who actively take legal highs will ignore the incoming future ban on legal highs.
The charity’s research revealed that the upcoming ban would not do much to decrease the damage done by legal highs.
As part of the research, the YMCA surveyed more than 1,000 individuals aged between 16 and 24 years old and also conducted more than 100 focus groups with young people.
The researchers discovered that 64 per cent of the respondents said that they would be likely to consume legal highs in the future, irrespective of the upcoming ban on the substances.
The survey also uncovered that 71 per cent of the legal high users in the research had only consumed the substances after having tried illegal drugs, which perhaps is a further challenge to the logic behind the incoming new law.
The ban on legal highs was supposed to have started earlier in 2016, however, its start date was delayed after worries that it could be potentially unenforceable. The ban is now expected to be enforced on 26th May 2016.
Entitled the Psycoactive Substances Act, the ban will forbid any psychoactive substances and then legalise some (e.g. alcohol, food and nicotine), instead of banning specific substances.
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