MORE details have emerged on the devastating impact so called ‘legal highs’ are having on young people in Tyrone.



MORE details have emerged on the devastating impact so called ‘legal highs’ are having on young people in Tyrone. Last week the Tyrone Herald revealed the plight of one local parent who said his family had been “ripped apart” after his teenage son developed a destructive addiction to a legally purchased substance. This week a second man has come forward claiming that several young users have been hospitalised in local mental health units after abusing ‘legal highs’ including ‘Magic Dragon’. Magic Dragon

Sold over the counter as incense or potpourri in Omagh, ‘Magic Dragon’ is a synthetic cannabinoid substance smoked as a legal alternative to cannabis. But users have warned that the psychoactive effects of ‘Magic Dragon’ is much more extreme and dangerous than the Class B controlled drug, causing panic attacks, paranoia and anxiety.

The man who does not wish to be named is a Tyrone based tradesman who trains young apprentice joiners. He told the Tyrone Herald that he is aware of “two or three” young people who have ended up in mental health units in Omagh after smoking large quantities of ‘legal highs’.

He recounted the experience of a 27-year-old Omagh man who he knows personally. “He is mentally scarred for the rest of his life, he will never be right again,” he claimed.


He said the parents of the man contacted him several months ago asking for help.

“We spent hours with him trying to talk with him, but it was going in one ear and out the other. He just couldn’t take it in, he wasn’t all there.

“We were trying everything to get him off it. His mother was in a terrible state, she had nowhere to turn to for help,” he added.

“The devastation this causes to families is unbelievable. When this young fella was on these drugs, his family couldn’t even stay in the house.”

Eventually health professionals agreed to intervene, but only when accompanied by police officers. That intervention came several months ago and according to the joiner, the 27-year-old has been kept under medical care since.

“He’s lost all of his faculties, he’s not all there now,” he said.

Hitting out at those selling ‘legal highs’ both over the counter and on the street the tradesman claimed, “What they are selling is nothing but misery. I feel very strongly about it purely because of what has happened these people and what it has done to their lives.”

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 has been amended in recent years in an attempt to curb the growth of ‘legal highs’, but the legislation has been slow to keep up with the rapidly expanding substances, which often simply adapt to changes in the law.


By labelling products as ‘not for human consumption’, high street and internet vendors are also able to avoid the governance of the Medicines Act 1968.

Alarmed

West Tyrone MLA Tom Buchanan has said he is “alarmed” at the popularity of ‘legal highs’ such as ‘Magic Dragon’ and called for the authorities to close loopholes in the current legislation to curb the wide availability over the internet.

“I am also alarmed to find out that such drugs are being offered for sale in local shops in the Omagh District and would call on these businesses to withdraw such substances from sale, because of the harm that they are causing to individuals and families,” he said.

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One man’s crippling addiction to legal highs AN Omagh man battling a crippling addiction to ‘legal highs’ has spoken of how his life has been destroyed.