Legal highs seized from Lincoln High Street shop

Police and Trading Standards raided a legal highs shop on Lincoln High Street and confiscated several psychoactive substances.

They seized 645 packets of legal highs from Marley’s Head Shop in a raid on June 4.

Although these products are referred to as legal, the substances have not been tested, so their effects can be unpredictable and extremely dangerous.

The so-called legal highs can also contain banned substances — making them illegal under consumer safety regulations.

Ian Newell, service manager for Lincolnshire Trading Standards, said: “Following intelligence that we have collected with Lincolnshire Police, we believe that these products could be seriously dangerous to the health of our county’s residents.

“We have a duty to protect them, so we have seized the stock.

“We will now extensively test the products in an attempt to prove they could jeopardize the health of consumers.

“We hope that our findings can lead to a successful prosecution against the business owner, and send out a strong message other people who could be selling these products.

“It will also help us to raise awareness to would-be users of legal highs that they might not be as harmless as they appear.”

Inspector Pat Coates said: “Lincolnshire Police are taking this issue very seriously.

“This has been part of an ongoing operation to tackle the sale and usage of these substances and a number of items were seized from the shop.

“These so-called ‘legal highs’ can come with a significant health risk for anyone who uses them and we are doing everything in our power to make sure they are not easily and readily available on our high streets.

“We hope this operation will show the local community, and those further afield, how committed we are to tackling this issue.”