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Controls on Legal Highs

I apologise for arriving late at this important debate. It is a pleasure to have my first opportunity to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. First, I want to acknowledge—this has probably been acknowledged before in one form or another—what a difference an election makes. In a short time, the Government have shown a firm lead on the issue of legal highs. Not so long ago—back in March—Professor Nutt, the former chairman of the ACMD, said of legal highs that"““it is virtually impossible to police the problem…the crime and justice side of things would get out of control. The police would spend their whole lives just arresting teenagers with mephedrone in their pockets””." That defeatist attitude has been kicked into touch by a very sensible approach to mephedrone.