There’s a new and menacing drug in town…

Malta is facing an influx of synthetic forms of cannabis, that is leaving some of its victims hospitalised at the emergency department or Mount Carmel, a local drugs expert has warned.

“Legal highs are the phenomenon of the day, just as ecstasy was in the 1980s,” forensic pharmacist Mario Mifsud told MaltaToday. “We still often speak of drugs in terms of classical drugs but there’s a whole array of new substances on the market.”

He warned that highly specialised chemists are constantly creating new forms of synthetic drugs, at a faster rate than the authorities can identify and criminalize them. Indeed, 100 new psychoactive substances were identified across Europe in 2015, a rate of two new drugs discovered every week.

In Malta, police last year arrested six people who were caught with a total of 36.968g of legal highs.

Read the full story in today’s edition of MaltaToday