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Bluelighter
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:27 PM on 12th April 2011
With reader comments
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1376159/Government-took-long-ban-meow-meow-dealers-able-stockpile-drug.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Last updated at 4:27 PM on 12th April 2011
With reader comments
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1376159/Government-took-long-ban-meow-meow-dealers-able-stockpile-drug.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
The Government’s advisers took too long to ban the then-legal high mephedrone, allowing dealers to build up a stash of the drugs, they conceded today.
Professor Les Iversen, the chief drugs adviser, said they would need to act more quickly with the introduction of new temporary banning orders, aimed at getting legal highs off the streets as soon as they become a problem.
The first problems with mephedrone - nicknamed meow meow - were highlighted in September 2009, but the drug was not banned until March last year.
But he also warned the introduction of temporary bans would place a 'heavy burden in terms of workload' on the ACMD and called for a research budget to be ring-fenced to enable them to carry out basic research into the effects of the drugs.
'It can be done on quite a limited budget, but someone needs to have a budget,' he said.
