'Legal-High' Naphyrone Latest Banned

An ingredient in things like bath salts has now been made an illegal drug - and Devon's police say anyone owning it could get five years in jail.

As well as featuring in bath crystals, plant food and pond cleaner Naphyrone was used as a so-called 'legal high' with street names like NRG-1, Energy 1 and Rave.

It has been phased out of most products in the past few months and on the 23rd of July was classified as a Class B Substance.

The maximum sentence for dealing naphyrone in now 14 years along with an unlimited fine.

Devon Drugs liason officer James Nicholson says if an officer finds you with an off-whitepowder they can't always identify it straight away: "it would be extremely difficult to differentitate between naphyrone, mephadrone and sometimes cocaine. We may have suspicion that it may be a controlled drug and subsequently an arrest may follow until we can ascertain exactly what the product is."

He also says the consequences of using it could be worse than police punishment: "its obviously a product that hasn't gone under full examination by scientists. It's a very dangerous product and people are essentially putting their lives at risk."

You can find out more about the drug and the law changes here