Leaders: Tough laws needed to end ‘legal drug’ deaths

Deaths from the abuse of illegal drugs are, tragically, an all-too-common feature of modern society. But an even more disturbing trend is the rise in the number of deaths resulting from the taking of mind-altering drugs that are not illegal, or “legal highs” as they are known. Innovative government action is needed now.

In 2010, while the overall number of drug-abuse deaths fell by 14 per cent from the previous year to 1,883, some 40 of these deaths resulted from people taking substances that were not on the lists of controlled substances and, therefore, were legal, even if only in the sense that they had not yet been banned. In 2009, there were only five such deaths.

Because they are legal, they can be sold in shops and over the internet. And because they are so readily available, people in search of a passing thrill tend to assume that they must be safe. They are not. In June, at the Rockness music festival, teenager Alex Herriot died after taking a so-called legal high. In the Strathclyde Police area this year, 13 people including two teenage girls have been hospitalised after taking a “herbal incense” called Annihilation.

The reason these substances exist is human ingenuity. People with a knowledge of chemistry are able to create new compounds that mimic the effect on the human body of controlled substances such as heroin, cocaine, or cannabis. But because they do not contain banned chemicals or materials, they are not illegal.

The makers and sellers of these drugs are as evil as the distributors of illegal drugs. They are marketed with words like “party” and “thrill” and some sport exciting-sounding names such as Benzo Fury. But the sellers care nothing for the damage that might be caused to individuals, only for making money.

The police, when they first encounter these substances, can do little about them because they usually do not contain any banned chemical. By the time they have been analysed and identified, and then banned, the designers have come up with new versions.

This is a hopeless game of catch-up, which the police and the law are doomed to lose. It is time for the lawmakers to show the same ingenuity as those they are fruitlessly pursuing, and to get ahead of them. Instead of trying to list every potentially damaging substance, consideration should be given to framing a law that prohibits the research into, and the manufacture of, substances which may harm or have, as the police put it, “psycho-active” properties. The same law should ban the sale of, or facilitating via the internet the sale of, such drugs. The police should be given the power to search for and seize any such substance that they have reasonable suspicion might be harmful.

Yes, it would be a catch-all and draconian law. But unless something like this is enacted, more young people will die.

Salmon row must be tackled head on

Salmon are as iconically Scottish as whisky and haggis and as economically important as golf. But behind the imagery and branding that lures anglers to battle for wild salmon in Scottish rivers and which, in a different guise, sells thousands of tonnes of farmed salmon world-wide, there is an increasingly acrimonious conflict.

A study by an impressive array of marine biologists and oceanographers from across the world has identified sea lice as a major killer of wild salmon at sea. These tiny parasites are believed to be responsible for two-fifths of the deaths of salmon. As this mortality occurs before salmon have had a chance to mature and return to their home river to spawn, sea lice are an obvious threat to river stocks of the fish and the angling interests that

depend on them.

The blame for this, anglers firmly believe, lies with fish farms whose captive fish are even more prone to sea lice infection and which gets transferred to passing young salmon when they depart the river of their birth. Fish farmers disagree, pointing to the peaks and troughs of salmon populations of east coast rivers where there are no fish farms. This conflict needs to be resolved. Fish farming is an important

export earner and provider of jobs in remote communities. Angling is a significant tourism earner and also sustains rural employment. Both should be able to co-exist amicably.

But the trend has been for one side to commission studies that support their view, only for the other to pay for rebuttal studies. This war of papers is achieving little. Both sides should get together, discuss the issues and agree on joint action to tackle the problems.