Legal highs are changing drug culture so much it is impossible to keep up, doctors have warned.

Medics at Manchester Royal Infirmary spoke to the M.E.N. about their ongoing struggle against synthetic drugs.

Dr Alan Grayson, a consultant in emergency medicine at the MRI, explained that legal highs have forced the government into a never-ending game of ‘catch-up’.

He said: “The chemists will always be one step ahead of the prohibiters – I suspect there will be no way that the drug laws will get on top of it.”

‘Legal high’ refers to substances that produce similar effects to illegal drugs, but are not controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Although there is no law against buying these psychoactive substances, they are not licensed for human use and if ingested can cause heart complications, anxiety, hallucinations, seizures, coma or death.

As soon as a substance is outlawed, chemists can tweak its composition slightly to create an almost identical substance that remains legal.

The problem this creates for hospital staff is that they have no way of knowing what a person has taken. Some doctors have suggested legal highs could be more dangerous than illegal drugs.

Dr Grayson said: “We’re dealing with combinations and amounts that nobody’s really explored before.

“For example, with a heroin overdose the evidence on how to treat a patient is well researched. But with a new legal high you’re left scratching around with very little.”

Legal highs are believed to be contributing to a spate of deaths in Greater Manchester.

Dr John Bright, a consultant in acute medicine, said: “I see more legal high problems than issues with illegal drugs. It seems to me that ecstasy is definitely on the way down and legal highs are on the way up.”

Dr Janos Baombe, a consultant in emergency medicine, explained that the fact the substances can be bought legally creates an ‘illusion of safety’.

He said: “A lot of people fall into this trap. What they don’t realise is that legal highs are often actually stronger than the ‘traditional’ drugs.

“We’ve seen it all here – people trying to climb to the roof or to catch bats and butterflies in the waiting room. Some people will take just one pill and go completely mad.”

Dr Baombe believes it is ‘downers’, including synthetic cannabis, which are the most dangerous.

He said: “Combined with alcohol they impair your respiratory drive and you simply stop breathing.

“You just fall asleep and never wake up.”

MRI staff say all they can do is treat patients as best as they can, but they struggle to see an end to the problem of legal highs.

Dr Baombe added: “This has been going on for years and it costs us a lot in terms of hospital money, time and beds.

“Unfortunately, it looks like in the UK we are trying to play catch-up with dealers and I don’t know how long we can play this game."

Young lives lost to danger chemicals

A number of deaths have been linked to legal highs.

Trainee psychologist Jennifer Whiteley, from Sale, died last July after taking a combination of cocaine and legal highs with her boyfriend as they celebrated her new job. An inquest heard how the night before her death she had taken BenzoFury and another substance 5MAPD, as well as a line of cocaine.

Lifeguard Jake Harris, from Rochdale, died after stabbing himself repeatedly with a smashed wine glass following a cocaine and legal high binge, according to an inquest. The 21-year-old believed he was taking hallucinogenic LSD at a friend’s Salford flat last May 2013. But analysis of the strips revealed they were a legal high known as

N-Bomb.

Emma Johnston, 21, and Chris Goodwin, 30, died in April after taking a lethal cocktail of drink and a former legal high drug. It is believed the pair had taken amphetamine, alcohol and a synthetic powder stimulant known as ‘bubble’ during a night out in Bolton.