A SHOP selling legal highs has been forced to remove several products from sale since the Government imposed a year-long ban.

The move by central Government will see five compounds of the controversial drugs made illegal while tests are carried out over the next 12 months.

But one legal high shop owner has warned the move could end up creating a black market for the drugs.

The Daily Echo launched its Say No To Legal Highs campaign following the deaths of three people from Hampshire in the last three years after having taken the known legal substances.

Schoolboy Adam Hunt, from Millbrook, died in hospital in August 2013 – five days after falling seriously ill after taking AMT and etizolam.

Trainee doctor Doug Ferguson, 19, from Chandler’s Ford, died after taking AMT in June 2012 and married father William Nutter, 32, from Andover, died after consuming AMT the following month.

The owner of the shop in Stockbridge Road, Wichester, who asked not to be named, said all the move will do is flood the black market with the newly-illegal goods.

The man, who also owns a shop in Southampton, has said the ban has left him with around £2,000 in unsalable produce and has already seen sales decline since it was imposed.

“We have taken off six to seven products which had them in,” he said. “They were the best-selling products but customers move onto something else.

"They have been missed already; our sales have dropped. I’m not going to know what’s happening in the long term. All the Government is doing is losing the revenue and tax from it.”

He said he will continue to work in conjunction with the police to ensure everything he sells is legal.

“I don’t take the risks,” he added. “For us, we have just taken it all off [from sale]. More than likely I think it will be banned.

“We just try to do everything within the law and everywhere we can help with the police and trading standards, we do. We just take it as it comes. We want to do everything properly.”

Daily Echo:

The ban covers five compounds related to methyl-phenidate, a Class B drug, following concerns about their misuse as new psychoactive substances (NPS).

One of the drugs being banned, ethylphenidate, has emerged as an alternative to cocaine and is currently being sold using the street names ‘Gogaine’ and ‘Burst’.

To prevent users from switching to similar drugs, the ACMD has also recommended that the following four drugs are banned:

  • 3,4-Dichloromethyl-phenidate (‘3,4-DCMP’), 
  • Methylnaphthidate,  
  • Isopropylphenidate 
  • Propylphenidate.

Hampshire’s police boss, Simon Hayes, praised central Government’s decision.

The police and crime commissioner said he would like to see the drugs banned for good.

“I support the Government in imposing this ban,” he said. “I hope, however, they will go further and pledge either a total ban or legislation governing their sale of these dangerous and life-threatening poisons.”