Fears new legal highs bill will cause unnecessary expense and confusion
It will only criminalise sales, not possession
A police and crime commissioner believes the forthcoming legal highs law could lead to legislation uncertainties and extra expense, with tests of a single suspected drug sample thought to cost £100.
The proposed Psychoactive Substances Bill will ban the trade of legal highs, but anyone caught with them for personal use will not be liable to prosecution.
As a result, Ron Hogg, Durham's Police and Crime Commissioner, sees this as a reason to confuse police officers who are making arrests.
He said: "On the ground that might mean that people are arrested, drugs seized and taken for testing, and then people are not prosecuted."
The Home Office has previously requested the bill to be rewritten, so people aren't wrongly criminalised, and Hogg reckons the bill can't be utilised to full effect if possession isn't a crime.
"It depends how much time and energy that forces are willing to put into this. The legislation doesn't help for not making possession a criminal offence, or taking the converse view and decriminalising possession of all drugs."
Anyone caught selling substances such as laughing gas could face up to seven years in prison once the bill is certified in its expected date of April.
[ Via: the Guardian]
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