A report by the Telegraph said that British Home Office initiated an immediate probe over the new drugs that are being sold on the Internet as cures for insomnia. The report said the new drugs tend to mimic the effects that would be felt if one uses heroine. It has been widely feared that the new line of drugs had already caused one casualty.
Drugs minister Norman Baker expressed the agency's astonishment of the new class of drugs, of which its effects are similar to that of Ckass A drugs like opiates. Baker is said to have tapped the Home Office's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to review the new class of drugs, which include AH-7921, known in the online market as a liquid sleeping pill.
The death that spurred the immediate probe was of 41 year-old computer technician Jason Nock, a Birmingham-based father of one who died after he took the liquid sleeping drug to aid him in his sleep, said the Telegraph. Nock's coroner reportedly tipped appropriate authorities to have the drug banned after examining the victim's remains and ruling his death as an accident.
In a news conference regarding the British government's continued efforts to stave off casualties of legal highs in central London, Baker said, "I think we've had a very good response in this country through the temporary control orders we've had, and we're certainly ahead of other countries in that basis, but if you're having new substances created almost on a weekly basis then inevitably we're chasing after those substances. I want to see whether we can get ahead of those substances, rather than chasing after them."
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs issued a warning last year on the dangers of using legal highs and disclosed that around 200 synthetic drugs that are potentially dangerous have yet to be banned.
