Legal high maybe but moral low certainly

With a reported profit margin of around 200 per cent, the temptation to sell synthetic cannabis - despite the health dangers it poses - is proving too enticing for some shopkeepers.

Products like K2 and others are legal (just like those other potentially dangerous substances, alcohol and tobacco), so the dairy owners are committing no crime.

However, with side effects that include violence, anxiety, psychosis, kidney failure - and even one reported heart attack - they may care to reconsider the morality of such a trade.

In Christchurch, police got pro-active and decided to get people to consider the morality of doing their shopping at such stores. The police campaign appealed for the community to support dairies displaying signs saying: "We choose not to sell synthetic cannabis".

In Bulls, Constable Dave Fraser reports "a quiet boycott by locals" who won't buy from a shop that sells the stuff, and in Gisborne parents are urging shoppers to stay away from similar outlets.

Good on them!

Maybe we need something similar in Wanganui where 10 out of 15 dairies visited by the Chronicle this week were selling K2 or similar "legal highs".

Those sales will be outlawed from next Thursday when a Temporary Class Drug Notice comes into effect making two of the substances found in K2 illegal. That brings the number of substances banned under temporary notices to 35, with more than 50 "legal high" products now off the market.

From August 1, the Psychoactive Substances Bill will become law, forcing manufacturers to prove their "legal high" products are safe for human consumption. It will, hopefully, place stringent controls on an unregulated industry worth tens of millions of dollars.

The bill is the work of United Future leader Peter Dunne. There have been times when one might regard Mr Dunne as a bit of a buffoon, but we should be right behind him on this issue because these are just battles in an ongoing war.

Mr Dunne says of his bill: "This is another blow to the industry and one of many we have delivered, but I fully acknowledge it is more of the cat-and-mouse game until we can deliver the killer punch."

One problem with "legal highs" is that few people really know what is in them, as the parent compounds are tweaked, creating adverse side effects.

Consider these sobering words from Victoria University School of Psychology Professor Susan Schenk, who says claims that the products are "low risk" are not backed up with credible toxicity testing.

"As soon as you start changing the chemical composition, you start changing the way the liver metabolises them; you start changing the way the kidney excretes it; and you get all kinds of effects, none of which you can actually anticipate."