Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ban legal highs.

The Government introduced the Psychoactive Substances Bill in the House of Lords on 28 May which provides for a blanket ban on the supply, sale, distribution and production of new psychoactive substances to protect people from exposure to these substances. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 provides a robust framework to control new psychoactive substances following assessment by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Since 2010, we have banned more than 500 new drugs, and on 10 April we subjected 5 stimulants to temporary control under the 1971 Act.