“Former Legal High” seizures skyrocket

Wednesday 15 July 2015

Customs stopped almost twice as many drug smuggling attempts in 2014 than the previous year – and say that the value of “former legal highs” seized has gone up from less than £30,000 to £187,651.

Customs Director of Law Enforcement Mark Cockerham said that they were stopping attempts to import former legal highs – also known as New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) - just about every week, and that a lot of the attempts were through the postal service.

He said: “They are such dangerous substances and when they first came to the Island in 2013 there was a public perception that because they were referred to as ‘legal highs’.

“At that time we were seizing around £30,000 worth in terms of value, whereas in 2014 where we really focussed the seizures doubled and there was a six-fold increase in terms of value.

“That to me would be indicative that the targeted approach in the ports and the Post Office is working – there is no question that we are seizing far more quantities of these substances.

“There was a perception that they were not that harmful, but not only were they illegal, some were extremely harmful.

“No border control is going to be infallible, unfortunately, we won’t stop everything – it would be naïve to think that we would.”

The figures were released in the Customs’ service annual report for 2014.