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Friends of teenager Adam Owens have started a Facebook campaign calling for legal highs to be banned.

Nearly 7,000 people have already ‘liked’ the Help Ban Legal Highs page set up in the wake of the teenager’s death.

Adam, 17, was found lying in a grassed area of the Westwinds estate in Newtownards, Co Down, on Monday.

The former Regent House pupil was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead a short time later.

It has been reported this week that the schoolboy is from Newtownards, but friends on Wednesday told Belfast Live he grew up in Bangor.

The Facebook page was set up late on Monday night, after news of Adam’s death spread, with the message that a “very important and close friend of many people passed away”.

It added that people need to rally together to get legal highs banned “before we lose another important friend or family member”.

And in a moving tribute to Adam, it calls him a “a great guy who was always there for people in their time of need, now we need to be there for him”.

Since then the page has been filled with comments and tributes about the teenager. A more recent post thanks everyone for getting involved with ‘likes’, comments and ‘shares’.

The post adds: “We will stop ‘legal highs’ no matter how long it takes! Let’s do Adam Owens proud as well as the many others who have lost their lives due to ‘legal highs’.”

The page also pays tribute to Adam’s mother in Bangor, calling her an “incredible woman”.

Belfast Live reported on Tuesday evening that drugs counselling charity FASA believes the Government is not doing enough to stop the sale of legal highs.

Alex Bunting from FASA said it would be possible to introduce legislation that would make it illegal to sell any substance that mimics the effects of illegal drugs, such as ecstasy.

Mr Bunting also said young people across Northern Ireland are being used as “guinea pigs” when they take so-called legal highs, as many have never been tested on humans.

He added: “In reality, the illegal drugs are often safer because they have been around for a lot longer.

“However, with the legal highs, there are new chemicals coming out all the time and they have not been tried or tested on humans.”