'Please stop selling legal highs' - parents' plea to Taunton shop

Nick Smith, whose daughter was pricked by a syringe discarded in public toilets, handed over a letter calling for Hush to take so-called legal highs off the shelves in its shop in Bridge Street, Taunton.

A staff member declined to comment but gave the County Gazette a lengthy written statement from owner Simon Tomlin defending his trade.

Mr Smith, who set up South West Action Group (SWAG), which has over 1,500 members and wants the sale of “lethal highs” outlawed, is concerned at the number of used needles left in public places and users openly injecting themselves in parks.

In their letter, published beside this report, SWAG members claim legal highs are damaging the community and devastating lives, as well as causing health problems to users and anti-social behaviour.

The letter says: “We peacefully and respectfully implore you to search your conscience and to look past the profit and margins and do the right thing and cease this trade.”

It adds: “Please help us to make our community, your community, a nice place to live once more – and most importantly, save some lives in the process.”

Mr Smith said SWAG members find several needles around Taunton daily.

He added: “Many heroin users have switched to legal highs because they’re easily available and you can’t get arrested.

“But we need to get the word out there that just because you can buy it in a shop doesn’t mean it’s safe.

“Lots of people are ending up in hospital and medical staff don’t know how to treat them because they don’t know exactly what they’ve taken.”

Mr Smith and fellow SWAG member Mel Wathen said they had: *seen a man injecting a woman in the neck in Goodland Gardens; *spoken to a hardened heroin addict who is petrified by friends acting unpredictably after taking legal highs; *seen two people injecting each other beside the river; *spoken to a woman whose ex-husband had moved from heroin to legal highs – and she wishes he’d go back on heroin to end his episodes of psychosis.

Mr Smith said: “It’s a scourge.

“We’re appealing to the morals of the shops selling legal highs.

“How can they sleep at night? Would they sell this stuff to their own children?”

SWAG’S LETTER TO HUSH.

We are writing as a committee SWAG and on behalf of our 1,500-plus members and the community of Taunton Deane as a whole. We would politely ask you to please cease trading the products described and sold under the umbrella term 'legal highs' in your establishment.

Our group was formed after an innocent six-year-old girl received a needle stick injury whilst using one of the public toilets next to one of Taunton’s main play parks.

This brought much attention to the virulent impact 'legal highs' are having on our community.

Not only are they being smoked, snorted and ingested but these substances are often being injected into the users blood stream, sometimes in place of the illegal drug it is designed to mimic - a practice becoming more and more commonplace - and is consequently causing a huge health risk because of the many discarded needles and syringes littering our public spaces.

As a consequence of what happened to this little girl, she has to have a series of preventative injections and her and her family have to go through the ordeal of waiting upon final test results. Is this acceptable to you?

Legal highs, or lethal highs as we prefer to call them, are damaging our town, our community and are responsible for devastating lives and families right here in Taunton.

They are responsible for physical and mental health problems - often very serious and also fatal in many cases - at least one person a week in the UK dies as a result of taking a lethal high.

They cause psychosis, addiction, stroke, heart problems, digestive problems to name but a few, let alone the huge anti-social behaviours we are witnessing on a daily basis here in our town.

People trust them because they can walk into your shop and buy them legitimately over the counter, many believing that this means they are safe to use.

The loophole in the current law making it easy for you to sell these products are enabling vulnerable addicts to abuse the system and attracting our youth by its legality and availability.

People are having to witness users injecting themselves in the middle of town, in parks, outside primary schools.

Children are walking past used needles and syringes and the brightly-coloured packets that look so much like sweet wrappers that the lethal highs come in.

Parents aren't taking their children out to play any more because they are scared to do so.

We aim to make our community a safe place once more, one where our children can play without the risk of needle stick injury, where parents can take their children to school without feeling fear at walking past the waiting crowd that gather outside your shops.

A community in which our police force and hospital staff don't have to deal with the grim consequences of the products you are selling.

We peacefully and respectfully implore you to search your conscience and to look past the profit and margins and do the right thing and cease this trade.

Our battle is one we will see through till the end and we will realise our end goals.

Please help us to make our community, your community, a nice place to live once more- and most importantly, save some lives in the process.

THE MAIN POINTS IN HUSH OWNER SIMON TOMLIN’S FOUR-PAGE STATEMENT.

*Many people take legal highs as their ‘drug of choice’ – and “the more users there are the higher the number of people that will suffer undesirable effects”.

*Alcohol, tobacco and opiates cause more problems and deaths.

*Banning legal highs would force the trade underground, leading to lower tax revenues, lining criminals’ pockets and no guarantee of quality.

*Hush self-regulates and won’t sell to under-18s.

*A small minority use drugs in a way that is detrimental to their health, family and community, but that is no reason to stop others using them.

*“We do not wish any harm to come to our customers or anybody around them.”

*Better education is needed.

*A&E admissions due to misuse of products “reflects badly on the industry”.

*Shop owners are legally barred from offering advice on legal highs, which hinders their safe use.

*Drug use is here to stay so should be regulated, with support for addicts.

*The media creates fear through “a tidal wave of emotion and morality”.

*Legalising drugs like cannabis and MDMA would result in fewer legal highs.