Editorial: It's battle stations if highs return

Shop owners can apply for a license to sell legal highs again.

It looks like our communities may have to brace themselves for another onslaught from the traffickers of legal highs.

Yes, we may have thought we had moved on from the scourge that is psychoactive substances, but they may yet make an appearance again. The Psychoactive Substances Amendment Act, passed under urgency last May, removed all of the psychoactive products on the market, but now shop owners will be able to apply for a licence to sell legal highs again from mid-this year.

This is not good news because we have seen what these drugs do to our community.

The one thing that we can pin our hopes on is the likely testing regime that is put in place. At present no legal high has been tested and approved for sale in New Zealand under the new regime, but full details of that regime are not yet known.

It is understood the regime will require proof the product is not addictive, doesn't have serious side effects and is made to the right quality. If this is so, then it will be hard for any retailer to be able to stock the harmful substances. However, as we all know, where there is a will, there is a way.

The good news is that the Napier and Hastings mayors, Bill Dalton and Lawrence Yule, are determined to fight back against the reintroduction of psychoactive substances.

This paper took a firm stance against the drugs and played a role, along with councils and communities across the country, in getting them taken off the shelves.

If they do become legally available again we will take up the fight again to ban them.

Last time the Government acted when we all spoke out.

We will do the same again to get rid of this curse.