Didnt realise there was such a big problem in Guernsey with "Legal highs", something on the BBC about them banning the import of these things. Is it a case of small island syndrome?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8548906.stm

Watch a program about them few weeks back, since them GHB and methadrone (M-Kat) have been all over the news.

The import and export of legal highs was made illegal last year - this latest debate is over whether to class mephedrone as a class A drug.

I actually don't think there's a big problem, but with the limited availability (and high price) of real drugs, I think the proportion of total drug users using these so-called legal highs is probably higher than in the UK or elsewhere. I think it's been said that the majority of people in prison (77 at the last count) are there for crimes relating to being addicted to legal highs, and the local drug charity says there's about 50-100 people addicted to mephedrone (out of a total population of 65,000). With 1.5% unemployment, there's not the social deprivation that plagues some towns or cities, but the comparative wealth of board teenagers and twenty-somethings with money to burn on a Friday night creates it's own problems I suppose.

The latest moves appear to have come on the back of local press revelations that the States will spend over £1m of taxpayers money this year sending addicts to the UK for treatment as there are no on-island facilities available, rather than any social/duty of care motive.