Moral Panics: Spiking and Legal Highs

Spiking

where drugs or alcohol are added to someone's drink without them knowing

Spiking is a illegal and can lead to a 10 year prison sentence. This sentence would be extended if the person who spiked the drink assaulted or robbed the victim also.

There are no reliable statistics to show how many victims of spiking are in the UK however reports show that it is rising.

Although most people know spiking to be adding strong drugs to drinks, the most common form of spiking is adding alcohol. It is added to a non-alcoholic drink. Common types of drugs used to spike drinks are: 

• gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and gamma-butyrolactone (GBL)
• tranquillisers, most often benzodiazepines, including valium and rohypnol 
• ketamine

Spiking is particularly dangerous when mixed with alcohol because when combined they have an extremely powerful anaesthetic effect. This can lead to death. Other side effects of spiking include: 

• lowered inhibitions 
• difficulty concentrating or speaking 
• loss of balance and finding it hard to move 
• visual problems, particularly blurred vision 
• memory loss (amnesia) or "blackouts" 
• feeling confused or disorientated, particularly after waking up (if you've been asleep) 
• paranoia (a feeling of fear or distrust of others) 
• hallucinations (seeing, hearing or touching things that aren't there) or having an "out of body" experience 
• nausea and vomiting 
• unconsciousness

Legal Highs

a substance with stimulant or mood-altering properties whose sale or use is not banned by current legislation regarding the misuse of drugs.

Many ‘legal highs’ are sold with names like ‘Clockwork Orange’, ‘Bliss’, ‘Mary Jane’  and have been know to cause poisoning, emergency hospital admissions including mental health services and i extreme cases - deaths. 

All legal highs can be put into one of the three categories:

• stimulants
• ‘downers’ or sedatives
• psychedelics or hallucinogens.

Legal highs come in a wide variety or forms including powders, pills and liquids. The drugs can be different sizes and colours and the 'ingredients' which must legally be stated on the packaging may not be correct, meaning the consumer does not know what they are taking.

Users can become addicted to legal highs as they contain substances found in other addictive dugs.

Possessing or supplying a ‘legal high’ that contains a banned drug is an offence.

All legal highs must state that they are 'not for human consumption' the the packaging even though this is why people buy them. It would be illegal not to include this on the packaging.

They are supposedly meant for chemical experiments such as heating and mixing and are therefore called 'research chemicals' when purchased.

You must be 18 to purchase legal highs.

They are available from a range of highstreet legal high shops including 'UK Skunkworks'..etc