Word: legalizing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...With this new legislation, Britain joins the growing number of European countries that have tackled 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...
...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...
...stimulant also known as 1-benzylpiperazine. The E.U. announced last year that all member states should ban BZP by March 2009 (lagging five years behind the U.S.). Like Britain, several other E.U. states still haven't complied, but already BZP "alternatives" are being advertised all over legal-high-vendor websites. It's unknown what exactly is in these BZP imitators, but if they're related to piperazines, manufacturers will have to find another alternative, as these too will fall under the new British ban. (Read: "Pot: Now Starring in Your Favorite Movie...
...designer drugs, U.K. lawmakers will have to walk a fine line between trying to stay one step ahead of manufacturers and classifying drugs too hastily, especially those that haven't yet been proved to be harmful to users. Once drugs are classified, they rarely get downgraded or returned to legal status, says Barnes, owing more to political than scientific will. "Legislation is a blunt instrument," he says. "If we go down the route where we simply outlaw on the basis of potential harm, the heavy weight of the law might not always be a pragmatic response...