OFF THE WIRE
Sky News
Banning so-called legal highs is not the way to tackle the problems they cause, the Government has been warned.
Methoxetamine, or mexxy, has become the first drug to be banned under new powers .It will be made illegal for up to 12 months while the Government's drugs advisers decide whether it should be permanently controlled.
However, the Association of Chief Police Officers' (Acpo) Drugs Committee said "the solution to the particular challenge of legal highs did not lie in adding inexorably to the list of illicit substances".
In a submission to the Home Affairs Select Committee, police chiefs said they would treat leniently anyone caught with the substances, according to The Times.
The police would continue to "focus their energies on serious criminality" and "take a less robust enforcement approach" when it comes to personal possession, the submission reportedly said.
A Home Office spokesman said: "The UK is leading the way in cracking down on new psychoactive substances by banning them while the harms they cause are investigated.
"Drugs ruin lives and cause misery to families and communities. Our strategy is to keep drugs off the streets and punish the dealers."