This refers to driving, trying to drive or being in charge of a vehicle while having a specified controlled drug in your body, above a specified limit.
This came into effect in March Roadside drug screening devices use spit saliva to identify if the person driving or in control of the vehicle has taken a drug as listed above. Following a positive result using saliva, you can then be asked to provide a blood sample for evidential purposes, to allow prosecution for the new offence if you are above the specified limit.
You are not on your own. Lots of people have tried taking drugs and have needed help to stop. If you find you are using a drug more and more often, this may be the start of becoming dependent on it. If you keep wishing you hadn't afterwards, or find you are running into trouble in other areas of your life, there are lots of ways to obtain help.
Think about why you are using the drugs and see if that helps you work out how to stop. For example:. There are lots of different ways of seeking help; it depends on you which might suit you the best.
Sometimes it is helpful to talk to the people who care about you - your parents, your friends, your teacher, your GP, for example. There are several organisations that help people wanting to stop taking drugs. You can choose to contact them in various ways - online for live chat, or by email, or by phone, or by visiting in person.
Or you can just read the information on their websites. Alternatively, your GP would be able to suggest the right place to go for help. Don't be scared of telling people about your drug problem.
They are likely to be relieved you want to do something to stop. Talk to them first. Be honest about your concerns and discuss the risks of drug taking and the worries you have.
Try to understand why they are taking drugs. Try not to be critical. If you understand why it is happening, you are more likely to be able to help them stop. Either on your own, or with the person you are worried about, you can go and speak to your GP and ask advice. Or, you can contact one of the many organisations that help people who are misusing drugs.
Several of these are listed below. They can give you advice and support. School nurses, teachers, or social workers may also be able to help and advise. It is not an uncommon problem, so you are not alone. There are professionals with lots of experience in helping other people in the same boat.
Drugs A-Z ; Frank. Drugs and Alcohol ; Public Health England. Alcohol and drugs - what parents need to know. Information for parents, carers and anyone who works with young people ; Royal College of Psychiatrists. How to talk to your kids about substance abuse ; RehabCenter. But I Disclaimer: This article is for information only and should not be used for the diagnosis or treatment of medical conditions.
Egton Medical Information Systems Limited has used all reasonable care in compiling the information but make no warranty as to its accuracy. Consult a doctor or other health care professional for diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions.
For details see our conditions. In this series. In this article What are recreational drugs and why are they used? What are the problems with the use of recreational drugs? This law has done nothing to slow down chemical innovation. After methoxetamine — a ketamine derivative — was banned, a distant, inbred cousin from a far-flung branch of the chemical family tree, diphenidine, has come on sale.
For every synthetic cannabinoid the authorities have banned, a half-dozen more have popped up, all of which are less understood by doctors than cannabis. There is simply no let-up. In the time it took to write my last story about legal highs, five new drugs came on the market. Each of them will be banned, as will the legal high that I have just commissioned.
A new modification will fill the gap within days. It is not an especially simple or trivial matter to untangle the UK's drug laws and find a drug that can be sold legally, but it can be done with a little effort, as my investigation showed. It can, however, be a hugely profitable affair.
Who cares about the consequences for users' health? Certainly not the vendors of these drugs, who dodge the law by saying they are not for human consumption. The real issue is this: we are confusing cause and effect.
The reason so many new drugs are appearing is precisely because we keep banning them. That approach worked in the s and s, and even perhaps until the s. But in the internet era, it is impossible to control this market. More laws equals more drugs. If I, a journalist who until recently knew nothing of chemistry, can commission a new drug in a matter of weeks, so can many more people.
If these kinds of biosynthetic yeasts became widely available, they could transform the drug market. Instead of drugs like heroin and cocaine being grown abroad and imported by criminal gangs, they could be produced locally by individuals or small groups. Brewing would also be much harder to detect or prevent than the cultivation of drug-yielding plants.
Growing cannabis indoors, for instance, requires a lot of electricity to power lights. Synthesising drugs like methamphetamines in small illegal labs, meanwhile, requires not only expertise but also the right chemical ingredients. Cutting off the supply of these chemicals is one of the main strategies of drug enforcement efforts.
This would be impossible with homebrew drugs — the only raw material needed is sugar. In a commentary in Nature , Bubela and her co-authors say governments need to act now if they want now to prevent morphine-making yeasts getting into the wrong hands.
Some fear that drug use could soar if home-brewing makes drugs easily available. But it is far from clear that this is true, especially for rich countries such as the UK.
In theory, home-brew drugs could deprive traffickers in countries such as Afghanistan and Colombia of their main source of revenue — money that fuels corruption and other criminal activities, destabilises governments and even funds terrorism. But it is hard to say how things would pan out. Until last year, for instance, coca cultivation in Colombia had been declining.
All this assumes that bioengineered yeast capable of making drugs do become widely available. There are already groups of self-styled biohackers , people who tinker with DNA in their spare time in community labs or their own garages. They have no sinister motives, but their existence illustrates the relative ease of DIY genetic engineering.
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