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Rush from the Web Legal highs are even deadly
The Internet sells so-called legal highs as alternatives to banned substances such as ecstasy. Health experts and youth advocates repeatedly point out the dangerous side effects of herbal mixtures and bath additives: Consumption can be fatal.
Legal highs can be life threatening
For years, experts have warned against so-called legal highs, which are brought online as supposedly harmless herbal mixtures or bath salts. The intoxicants can lead to poisoning and depending on the composition trigger panic attacks and hallucinations. In addition, physical impairments such as blood pressure fluctuations, nausea and vomiting, respiratory distress, serious cardiovascular problems such as palpitations or cardiac arrest, convulsions or comatose conditions may occur. Sometimes they can even lead to death.
Health experts and youth advocates warn of the dangers of so-called legal highs. The herbal mixtures can sometimes even lead to death. (Image: Monkey Business / fotolia.com) 20-year-old woman died after consuming herbal mixture
"Beach Party", "Crazy Monkey" or "Unicorn Magic Dust" - psychoactive substances are glorified on the Internet with cool names and youthful attire, according to the website of the state government of Rhineland-Palatinate. In May, a 20-year-old had died in May in the state after consuming herbal mixtures. The dangerous substances are also freely available to minors. On the Internet, legal highs are sold as alternatives to banned substances such as ecstasy. Search engines make online shops easy to find. According to the information they often advertise their products via social networks or offer free samples there. "Consumption of the substances carries high health risks and can even lead to death," said the Rhineland-Palatinate youth secretary. Christiane Rohleder. "It is irresponsible when adolescents are targeted with dangerous substances."
For teenagers easy to buy
Legal Highs are popular with young people, according to the State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) Rhineland-Palatinate. According to estimates of a LKA spokeswoman, the phenomenon does not exist for more than three or four years. Also, the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Youth and the Commission for Youth Media Protection (KJM) point to the presentation of the current report of "jugendschutz.net" on the danger of the so-called legal highs and their great relevance to the protection of minors. According to this, traders presented legal highs as enrichment of life and stress management. In addition, they made it very easy for their young target group to find out about the products - for example via Facebook - and also to acquire them.
Half of the products are covered by the Narcotics Act
According to the report, the herbal mixtures could be ordered at 62 out of 62 verified Internet shops, ie in 100 percent of these cases, without age control. The traders write in the net often that the mixtures are only room fragrances and not to eat or to smoke, but this approach is classified by "jugendschutz.net" as a pure concealment tactics. The herbal mixtures are often explicitly advertised as legal by the providers, but an investigation of the University Hospital Freiburg between April 2015 and March 2016 came to other conclusions. The researchers found that 55 percent of 471 samples fell under the Narcotics Act. 73 percent of the mixtures would therefore contain strong psychoactive substances that were known to cause dangerous poisoning.
Almost 40 dead last year
However, at legal highs it is unclear in most cases which substances are exactly in them. From the office of the Federal Drug Commissioner Marlene Mortler (CSU) said: "Almost every week, a new substance with slight molecular changes on the market." In addition, the diverse drug variants are also used as a legal loophole. A spokeswoman for the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Wiesbaden said legal highs were "designed so that their concrete composition is always just so" out of the law. In the future, a law should ensure that it is no longer just individual substances that are banned, but chemical substance groups. According to the information, legal highs are among the so-called new psychoactive substances (NPS). According to the BKA spokeswoman, it refers to substances that have been chemically altered in such a way that they are no longer covered by the Narcotics Act. The effect on the psyche remains, however, and is sometimes even amplified by the change. According to information from the BKA, 39 people died nationwide over the past year because of the consumption of NPS. Compared to 2014, this was an increase of 56 percent. At that time there had been 25 deaths throughout Germany. In addition, the police assume a high number of unreported cases. (Ad)