Public right to stop legal highs

There are plenty of things in life that are legal and the community still should have a say in where they should be situated. Pokie machines and liquor outlets spring to mind.

And legal highs are in that category.

The Wanganui community has every right to make it very clear that legal highs should not be sold in our suburbs.

The anger directed at the Dublin St drug store which offers party pills - as reported in yesterday's Chronicle - means a very clear message has gone to shop owners that selling such material, especially to the young, is perverse. If you want to make a buck, do it some other way.

What isn't clear is the legal position now on the sale of such psychoactive drugs.

Sellers seem to be circumventing the law already, with makeshift stores popping up so close to dairies that used to sell the stuff (dairies are now banned from selling legal highs) that it's a heck of a coincidence.

And the Ministry of Health says it has not yet started a review of licences to sell the psychoactive drugs. So just a little confusing ...

But whatever the new rules are, sales will inevitably go underground or be sourced off the internet.

There has been some comment to the effect closing the Dublin St "pop-up" drug store is laughable because the products are available elsewhere round town so easily.

But that's no reason to turn a blind eye to the likes of the Dublin St store. Public antipathy to such operations is how change is made.

Along with the police and the Ministry of Health, the sale of such materials will hopefully be kept in check.

Congratulations to Ken Mair and Antony Rountree for going public and putting the youth of Wanganui - and the health of this town - first.

One more thing:

If there is anything more curious than a piano being put out on a street for anyone to play, it's a song lyric mandating someone to take it. That is what seems to have happened in Drews Avenue.

We always knew there would be a logical explanation for the piano going missing. And if it wasn't for the sake of a poor musical prodigy, the interpretation of The Lost Blues is the next best thing.

Wanganui remains a city of whimsy.