LONDON, October 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
The only British charity dedicated to raising awareness of legal highs, the Angelus Foundation, has called on the Government to release its report on ways of reducing the harm from legal highs.
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The report was commissioned in December and completed in July. This weekend the Drugs Minister, Norman Baker said: "We have wasted three months when we could be taking action to save lives. It is irresponsible to play politics with these sort of issues."
As a minimum Angelus wants the report to contain new initiatives on education and prevention as well as strong action against high street sales of legal highs.
Last year, there were 81 new legal psychoactive substances identified across EU. The UN Office and Drugs and Crime estimates the numbers of young people in UK (aged 15-24) who have taken a legal high as 670,000 - making us the highest consumers in Europe.
Angelus was invited to give evidence to the Home Office review on restricting the supply of legal highs and disseminating public information around their physical and mental health harms. There is still no date for publication. The legal highs report will be published at the same time as an International Comparisons Study examining good practise in other countries around drug treatment and enforcement.
Maryon Stewart, founder of the Angelus Foundation said, "Angelus, as the lead legal highs awareness charity, shares the Drugs Minister's deep frustration about this important report being repeatedly obstructed. Weeks and months have been wasted - the report is simply too important to stay blocked when we could already be getting to grips with educating young people and stopping these dangerous substances being sold on the high street. It is just not acceptable that there should be political posturing with one eye on the General Election when safeguarding young people is at stake. These harmful and unpredictable substances can rob young people of their mental well being and even end their lives."
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