Kids as young as 13 using ‘legal highs’

Children as young as 13 are taking freely available drugs known as ‘legal highs’ that have been blamed for two deaths.

Admitting that the law has not caught up with the lucrative market for psychoactive substances, Drugs Minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said what he is hearing from different parts of the country “is terrifying”.

A community worker in Monaghan told an Oireachtas committee that a psychoactive drug that mimics the effects of cannabis had killed two young people in the last 12 months.