6 in hospital after taking legal highs
SIX people were taken to hospital and three others had to be treated by paramedics after collapsing from the effects of legal highs.
The separate dramas happened just a week before a Government’s long-awaited ban on the drugs is to come into force.
Four men, including one who had a nearfatal heart attack, ended up on a ward in Bath, Somerset, after taking a synthetic cannabis drug called Oblivion.
Meanwhile in Rochdale, Lancs, one man is in a coma, another in a serious condition and three others had to be given urgent treatment after taking another cannabis-based high called Annihilation.
Police have issued warnings over the drugs, which in many cases are far stronger than cannabis or skunk.
Det Sgt Louise Ashurst of Greater Manchester Police said yesterday: “These substances are very dangerous.”
The ban on legal highs comes into force on Thursday after a barrage of shocking statistics that show 144 people have died from the synthetic drugs this year alone.
The Psychoactive Substances Act provides new powers for police and tough sentences of up to seven years for offenders.
The drugs, created by shady pharmacists who tweak the chemical make-up of illegal substances to put them just inside the law, have been openly available in High Street “headshops” or on the internet.