A WINCHESTER shop selling legal highs has been forced to remove several products from sale since the Government imposed a year-long ban.

Hampshire’s police boss, Simon Hayes, praised the move by central Government which will see five particular compounds of the controversial drug made illegal while tests are carried out over the next 12 months.

But the Winchester shop-owner, who has asked not to be named, said all the move will do is flood the black market with illegal goods.

The man, who also owns a shop in Southampton, has said the ban has left him with around £2,000 in unsalable produce and has already seen sales decline since it was imposed.

“We have taken off six to seven products which had them in,” he said. “They were the best selling products but customers move onto something else. They have been missed already; our sales have dropped. I’m not going to know what’s happening in the long term.

“All the Government is doing is losing the revenue and tax from it.”

He said he will continue to work in conjunction with the police to ensure everything he sells is legal.

“I don’t take the risks,” he added. “For us, we have just taken it all off [from sale]. More than likely I think it will be banned.

“We just try to do everything within the law and everywhere we can help with the police and trading standards, we do. We just take it as it comes. We want to do everything properly.”

The ban covers five compounds related to methylphenidate, a Class B drug, following concerns about their misuse as new psychoactive substances (NPS).

One of the drugs being banned, ethylphenidate, has emerged as an alternative to cocaine and is currently being sold using the street names ‘Gogaine’ and ‘Burst’.

To prevent users from switching to similar drugs, the ACMD has also recommended that the following four drugs are banned:

3,4-Dichloromethylphenidate (‘3,4-DCMP’)
Methylnaphthidate
Isopropylphenidate and
Propylphenidate.

Mr Hayes, police and crime commissioner, said he would like to see the drugs banned for good.

“I support the Government in imposing this ban,” he said. “I hope however they will go further and pledge either a total ban or legislation governing their sale of these dangerous and life threatening poisons.”

Three Hampshire men are known to have died in the last three years after taking known legal-substances.

Schoolboy Adam Hunt, from Millbrook, died in hospital in August 2013 – five days after falling seriously ill after taking AMT and etizolam.

Trainee doctor Doug Ferguson, 19, from Chandler’s Ford, died after taking AMT in June 2012, while married father William Nutter, 32, from Andover, died after consuming AMT the following month.