A report this week declared Britain 'the addicted man of Europe’. But the lethal new stimulants flooding our streets are not only easy to buy – they are legal.
A few days ago, Southampton teenager Adam Hunt’s friends met up to play football. He wasn’t there. The bright 18-year-old had been laid to rest at a church the previous day. Adam, who had passed 11 GCSEs and was studying electrical engineering at college, died after taking the legal high AMT last month.
The proceeds of that fundraising game, which was arranged in memory of the keen Southampton FC supporter, will go to the intensive care unit at Southampton General Hospital, where he spent five days before he passed away.
In the past year, police in Hampshire have had to deal with three “extremely serious” cases involving AMT, a psychedelic drug that releases serotonin and can have effects similar to LSD and ecstasy. It won’t be long before another youngster ends up in hospital.
A stark report published this week by Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has warned that Britain is now the “addicted man of Europe” with some of the highest rates of substance abuse.
The report highlights particular concern over legal highs, ordered online and delivered by postal workers operating as unwitting “drug mules”. At least one in 12 young people in the UK – more than 670,000 - have already tried legal highs, which have been linked to an 80 per cent rise in deaths in the past year (from 29 to 52). Britain is now regarded as a global hub for websites selling the drugs.
