An army of angry churchgoers gathered in Arbroath in a bid to “banish” a legal highs shop from the town.
Around 60 people took part in Saturday’s protest outside Misty Heaven on Fisheracre, which has opened just yards from an addiction support centre.
Members of St Andrew’s Church handed out leaflets and held placards that read, “Misty Heaven = Foggy Hell” and “Legal Highs? Legal Deaths” during the protest.
They were joined by members of the Old and Abbey Church and other concerned members of the public including recovering drug addicts.
The shop is two doors along from the church’s Havilah drop-in centre which provides help for people suffering with alcohol or drug addictions.
Misty Heaven’s over-18s store sells bongs, grinders, “legal high” chemical compounds, branded as “research chemicals”, and room odouriser, which is another term for bottled amyl nitrate.
It is the second legal highs shop to open in Arbroath with Declaration already established on the town’s Brothock Bridge.
The Rev Martin Fair said they hoped to bring enough pressure to bear so that Misty Heaven and similar shops are “banished from our town.”
He said: “Arbroath has a problem with harmful drug use and addiction. For seven years, we have sought to address these problems through our Havilah service.
“The drug problem affects all of us and requires a ‘whole community’ response. It was with serious disquiet, therefore, that we realised that the former Linefield Graphics shop on Fisheracre had opened under new ownership, this time selling so-called legal highs and other drug-related paraphernalia.”
Mr Fair said it was his view that Arbroath does not need such a shop and the fact it is so close to the drop-in centre “only makes it worse”.
He added: “Unfortunately, within current legislation it is extremely difficult for the authorities to do anything about this shop, or its activities. We trust that the Scottish Government and local authorities will move quickly to prohibit such trading but in the meantime it is our intention to let it be known in the strongest possible terms that we do not want this shop, or others like it.
“Legal highs are dangerous and we believe that the legitimisation of these substances by making them readily available on the streets of our town is a move too far and something that none of us welcomes, other than those who would profit from it.”
Last week it was revealed the UK has the largest market for legal highs in the EU and nearly 700,000 Britons aged 16-24 have experimented with one form or another.
Last September, Fife mum-of-three Jackie Jarvis died after taking a substance thought to be related to mephedrone. The 38-year-old took the substance at a house in Glenrothes.
Havilah project leader Tracey McLeod said: “They are called legal highs but they are psycho-active substances and people don’t know what they are taking.
“A lot of drug addicts start on cannabis and eventually move up to heroin and this is the worry with these legal highs. One is not enough so you take two and then you start progressing to illegal drugs.”