July 11, 2012

legal highs…and lows

Speakers:
Dr Owen Bowden-Jones, Consultant Psychiatrist and founder of the Club Drug Clinic, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital
Prof Valerie Curran, Professor of Psychopharmacology, University College London
Dr Paolo Deluca, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London
Dr John Ramsey, Analytical Toxicologist and Director of TICTAC Communications Ltd., St. George’s University of London

So called ‘legal highs’ have caught lawmakers on the hop because they are often created by altering illegal psychoactive molecules just enough to fall outside the law.

Four experts came to the SMC to discuss which chemicals are found in legal highs, what these substances are doing to users’ heads, the fallout from these drugs on the frontline, how we keep track of emerging legal highs and how we monitor which novel substances are popular among the British public.

The SMC also produced a Fact Sheet on legal highs to accompany the briefing.