Ministers warned of dangers of legal highs like Miaow Miaow five years ago: expert

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor 720AM GMT twenty-two March 2010

Mephedrone, well well known as miaow, is only one of hundreds of psychoactive substances that can be paid for over the internet legally, it was warned.

Prof David Nutt, the former Government drug confidant who was sacked after criticising ministers" policies, pronounced a inform created in 2005 warned that the greatest destiny complaint would be fake drug paid for online.

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The Foresight inform referred to formulating a holding difficulty for these substances so they could be tranquil whilst serve investigations were carried out but Prof Nutt pronounced this was ignored.

Prof Nutt, was authority of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and was asked to examine the destiny of drug abuse by ministers in 2004, he said.

Prof Nutt pronounced "We constructed a inform in 2005 and pronounced the big complaint is going to be the internet supply of fake drug - we"ve got to do something about it. That was a really transparent summary from the report.

"Believe me, the ACMD did try to get the Government to take this subject seriously. We saw it coming, we likely it and it has arrived."

A Home Office orator pronounced "We have deliberate this in a small detail. Temporary bans do not residence the total problem. We cite to deliver permanent laws for long-term carry out which, in the box of authorised highs, will additionally concede for associated compounds to be controlled."

Meanwhile an additional study, commissioned by the EU, has found that some-more than 400 new drug have been identified that have identical goods to bootleg drug but have been changed and reproduced synthetically so they sojourn legal.

Author of the study, Prof Fabrizio Schifano, of the propagandize of pharmacy at University of Hertfordshire, pronounced "We have identified 415 psychoactive compounds or combinations of compounds that are not well well known in the healing novel that equates to that the materialisation is not only a small bit of mephedrone here or there."

He pronounced mephedrone was only the "tip of the iceberg" and that immature people need to be warned that "legal does not meant safe".

Mephedrone, that has been called plant food, costs around �10 a gram and has been replacing Ecstasy and heroin on the celebration scene.

It was related to the deaths of Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, who died in Scunthorpe last week.

Several alternative immature people are thought to have died after receiving the drug.

The ACMD, underneath the halt authority Prof Les Iverson, are deliberation mephedrone but the routine was behind by the sacking of Prof Nutt. It is approaching to inform prior to long but a anathema is doubtful prior to the summer.