New law to ban basic ingredients of designer drugs

State Secretary Paul Blokhuis of Public Health and Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus of Justice and Security are submitting a legislative proposal to ban the basic ingredients of so-called designer drugs. In this way they want all new designer drugs to automatically be banned by the Opium Act, the Telegraaf reports.

Designer drugs are chemical drugs "designed" in a laboratory to produce the same effect as illegal drugs like ecstasy, heroin and cocaine, according to the newspaper. The makers of these drugs change their composition on a regular basis, so that they can appear legally on the market.

Blokhuis thinks that designer drugs should fall under the same category as the already banned hard drugs that they are derived from. "These are drugs with demonstrably high health risks. Of the designer drugs that are derived from them, we can assume that they can just as easily cause major health damage," he said to the newspaper.

The ingredient ban will focus on three large "substance groups", so that in practice al new designer drugs are automatically covered by drug legislation.