Word: bans
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...high without the criminal side effects can go online or walk into a head shop and buy perfectly legal alternatives to a whole host of illegal drugs, from marijuana to ecstasy to cocaine. But not for long. On Tuesday, Aug. 25, the U.K. government announced it is set to ban these so-called legal highs by the end of the year. The ban on designer drugs such as stimulant BZP, narcotic alternative gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) and cannabis imitator Spice is being described as a precautionary measure, with the aim of getting the substances off the shelves before they've gained...
...legal highs over the past several years. For now, dozens of U.K.-based websites and shops are still free to market and sell alternatives to illegal drugs and to ship them to any country that doesn't yet prohibit them. It's these legal drug dealers that the British ban seeks to target. "The priority will be to chase suppliers rather than users," says Martin Barnes, head of Drugscope, a nonprofit that studies drug use in the U.K., and a member of the advisory board that recommended the new bans. (See pictures of the Great American Pot Smoke...
...long had an answer to cutting off the supply of legal highs: a blanket law that bans not just one particular drug but any drug that resembles it. The Analogue Drug Act of 1986 automatically outlaws any drug "substantially similar" to an illegal drug in either composition or effect. The U.K. is moving closer to the U.S. model, but instead of a blanket ban, the government is crafting several smaller laws to cover whole families of drugs. Cannabinoids will join marijuana as a Class B drug, which will mean fines or up to five years in prison for possession...
...Britain's war on legal highs started in May with talk of a ban on Spice. The Chinese smoking blend is generally described as herbal, but tests carried out in German labs have shown that its herbal mix is sprayed with designer chemicals that mimic the effects of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, but to a more potent effect. France, Germany and Austria have recently outlawed the sale of Spice, and the U.K. now plans to ban not just that specific cannabis substitute but all synthetic cannabinoids - a class of designer drugs structurally resembling cannabis - hoping to nip offshoots...
...goal is to make Germany the leading market for electro-mobility," Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told reporters in Berlin as he unveiled the plan. (Read "German Court Upholds Ban on Extra-Long Names...