Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:26:51.157Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Legal highs’ – what's in a name?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

John Lally
John Lally*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, UK, email: john.lally@kcl.ac.uk
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
Type
Columns
Information
BJPsych Bulletin , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , August 2015 , pp. 206
Check for updates
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an open-access article published by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2015

I wish to draw the reader's attention to our study, ‘Prevalence study of head shop drug usage in mental health’, published in this journal in February 2013. This is in light of recent publications focusing on the differential effects of cannabinoids on the development of psychosis, Reference Di Forti, Marconi, Carra, Fraietta, Trotta and Bonomo1 including the use of synthetic cannabinoids and an increased risk of acute psychosis. Reference Papanti, Schifano, Botteon, Bertossi, Mannix and Vidoni2

Our work examines the prevalence of the use of ‘legal highs’ among mental health patients and the self-reported effects of legal highs on mental health. We identified a prevalence rate of legal high use at 13% (n=78), with over half of users reporting a deleterious effect on their mental state. This risk was particularly increased for those with a history of a psychotic disorder, with two-thirds of individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder reporting an exacerbation of psychosis. Although it was a self-report survey, its findings emphasise a particular risk for individuals with mental illness secondary to the use of legal highs, and to the best of our knowledge it remains the largest survey of its kind.

A recent systematic review which sought to examine, among other variables, subjective effects and the harmfulness of legal highs failed to identify our study. Reference Baumeister, Tojo and Tracy3 This may be a consequence of our chosen title, which reflected the term commonly used for legal highs in 2012 in Ireland, namely head shop drugs (a moniker for shops which sold legal highs). This has evidently meant that our study findings are missing from systematic reviews Reference Papanti, Schifano, Botteon, Bertossi, Mannix and Vidoni2,Reference Baumeister, Tojo and Tracy3 and even from commentaries relating to legal highs within this very journal. Reference Bowden-Jones4,Reference Meacher5

This letter is a valiant attempt to remind readers of our findings, and in the process highlight the risk to mental stability in a clinical population from the use of legal highs. We hope that in framing this letter in the context of legal highs, future research and systematic reviews in this field will now locate our article when searching for publications relating to legal highs, notwithstanding any future change in the descriptive term for these drugs to novel psychoactive substances!

References

1 Di Forti, M, Marconi, A, Carra, E, Fraietta, S, Trotta, A, Bonomo, M, et al. Proportion of patients in south London with first-episode psychosis attributable to use of high potency cannabis: a case–control study. Lancet Psychiatry 2015; 2: 233–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
2 Papanti, D, Schifano, F, Botteon, G, Bertossi, F, Mannix, J, Vidoni, D, et al. ‘Spiceophrenia’: a systematic overview of ‘spice’-related psychopathological issues and a case report. Hum Psychopharmacol 2013; 28: 379–89.Google Scholar
3 Baumeister, D, Tojo, LM, Tracy, DK. Legal highs: staying on top of the flood of novel psychoactive substances. Ther Adv Psychopharmacol 2015; doi: 10.1177/2045125314559539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Bowden-Jones, O. ‘Legal highs’ and other ‘club drugs’: why the song and dance? Psychiatrist 2013; 37: 185–7.Google Scholar
5 Meacher, BMC. Drug policy reform – the opportunity presented by ‘legal highs’. Psychiatrist 2013; 37: 249–52.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.