Legal highs, which are spreading like wildfire across Europe and will be felt locally over the next 12 months, are making illegal drugs more dangerous, a prominent psychologist has warned. 

Senior lecturer of addiction at Edith Cowan University, Dr Stephen Bright, said he was concerned with new and emerging drugs becoming identifiable in Victoria. 

And the state government’s current legislative approach – to put a blanket ban on any substances that have a psychoactive effect – would drive once-legal substances into the underground market. 

“The first generation of legal highs contained Benzylpiperazine (BZP), when BZP was banned all ecstasy around the world contained BZP because they (producers) had a lot of it, you’re not just going to chuck it in the bin, you’ve got to get rid of it,” Mr Bright said. 

Legal highs made illegal by the state government’s annual illicit substances register were “tweaked” and “mutated” to become ‘legal’, creating a “merry go round” of legal and illegal drugs in Victoria.

The state government in March introduced legislation outlawing the production, sale and promotion of  any substances that have a psychoactive effect. 

Mr Bright – speaking to health professionals who deal with effects of drugs at a Bendigo Community Health Services event on Wednesday – said the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction identified 500 new drugs over the past six years. 

“The problem is coming – those traditional (illegal) drugs are being laced with new drugs coming from China and India that are a lot more powerful,” he said.

These new drugs become active at very low doses, meaning the risk of people overdosing is a lot higher, he said.

One solution proposed by Mr Bright was legalising cannabis.  

“My research has shown 93 per cent of people say the reason they smoke legal highs is because they can’t get marijuana, or they are getting drug tested,” he said. 

BCHS alcohol and other drugs community senior worker Bart McGill said the accessibility of legal highs made it difficult for health services.

“For people with pre-existing mental health issues, synthetic drugs will exacerbate these symptoms,” he said. 

Some powerful synthetic opioids, for example, were stronger than heroin and had a high risk of overdose, Mr McGill said. 

The state government is holding an inquiry into the drugs, poisons and control substances amendment bill, which proposes a blanket ban on any drugs that have psychoactive affects. 

A report on its findings is due in September.