The Legal High – Smoking Reviews & Legal Highs

You would have to have had your head in the clouds over the last year or two to have missed the debate about legal highs. The government’s approach, as always, has been to ban, ban, ban, and not even bother asking questions later. But is this really the best way?

The fact is, since time immemorial, human beings have been looking for ways to alter their consciousness, and mind altering substances have been used in spiritual and shamanic ceremonies ever since man first came down from the trees and started walking on two legs. Why should our ingrained primal heritage be repressed purely because we now live in condos rather than caves? It won’t be, and many people seek to alter their consciousness by the socially acceptable and legal drug, alcohol. Even the uber-health conscious, who would never take anything into their system, may become addicted to a natural high that is produced by the brain when we exercise. In mountainous areas, where the air is thin, one who is not used to the high levels of oxygen may get high from a simple walk. Should we therefore ban alcohol, exercise and holidays in the Pyrenees?

The answer is, of course not. So why do the government and media immediately begin to sweat as soon as the words ‘legal high’ come within earshot? In recent times there have been some tragic deaths connected to the use of various legal highs. Notice the use of the words ‘connected to.’ Not ‘caused by.’ ‘Connected to.’ Very different connotations although the government seems to fail to make the distinction.  Take mephedrone, for example. A person died following taking mephedrone and the media jumped on this like flies, widely reporting that a young life was claimed by a legal drug. However, toxicology tests reported that they actually died due to “cardiac arrest following broncho-pneumonia which resulted from streptococcal A infection.” No mention of mephedrone or even any kind of drug taking at all.

No-one is saying that these deaths are not tragic, and in some cases not unavoidable, but it is wrong to blame legal highs when there is no conclusive proof that they were the cause. It would be impossible to stop people experimenting with drugs, and as legal highs get banned new ones with different formulas will follow. Surely a better solution would be to fully and properly research the effects of ones that are currently available without the scare-mongering and scape-goating that currently takes place, and allow us, as human beings, the right to alter our own consciousness as we see fit.

Filed under: Legal Highs News on July 7th, 2010