Opinion Changing service shows its worth Craig McClue ctsI lead officer and policy executive This months cover story, looking at a legal highs prosecution in Oxford, shows that the now-criminalised substances remain a consumer protection issue. Formally referred to as new psychoactive substances (NPS), this market showed that drugs were no longer the preserve of criminals in backrooms or dark nightclub corners. Dangerous psychoactive products were being packaged, branded and distributed for normal sale. Drugs had arrived in high streets and, as popular brands developed, so too did retail services, such as gift-wrapping and even loyalty cards. The results for users were inevitable: cardiovascular problems; kidney failure; depression; psychosis; and, sadly, many deaths not to mention the social degradation of areas around head shops and an intolerable strain on certain NHS and A&E services. Opinions were polarised as to whether NPS was a trading standards issue or not. The difficult question is: why should we protect consumers who are apparently willing to ignore not for human consumption labels? To that, I would argue that the buyers motives are less relevant; the focus should be on the suppliers. Their descriptions were a fallacy NPS were never bath salts, research chemicals or incense, and they were specifically produced for human consumption. That, of course, was their weakness.With no utility under the descriptions, coupled with their considerable harms, NPS created unacceptable risks, making them dangerous consumer products under the General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR). The risk for trading standards was getting it wrong untested legal grounds and the spectre of having to offer compensation for ill-judged GPSR actions. The reward, however, was clearing the high streets to protect consumers from the visible blight of head shops and NPS. Oxford proved the worth of an adaptable trading standards service. Trading standards wont solve the UKs drugs problems, but might it be that faster coordinated trading standards actions tackling NPS as unsafe consumer products save lives?