YOUNG people - some as young as 12 - who take 'legal highs' are playing Russian roulette with their lives, a leading Bradford casualty doctor has warned.

Bradford Royal Infirmary accident and emergency consultant, Dr Brad Wilson, said he feared it was only a matter of time before someone died in the district from the effects of New Psychoactive Substances.

Dr Wilson said the hospital's casualty department was being disrupted by the aggressive behaviour of people whose personalities had been changed by the drugs.

And he warned that the long-term effects of taking NPSs were unknown.

Dr Wilson said the A&E department was seeing on average one legal high patient a day, but the number increased dramatically at weekends, particularly when events were taking place.

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He said: "I was working two weekends ago and there was a big march in Bradford. I saw at least nine people who attended the emergency department with secondary effects from NPSs. Those were only the ones I knew about. There would have been more.

"We didn't use to see anybody suffering from the effects of legal highs. It was all people who had overdosed on amphetamines, cocaine and heroin. Now New Psychoactive Substances are being more commonly used as recreational drugs. They are easy to access and they are starting to be termed 'appropriate' for an informal good night out."

Dr Wilson said NSP patients he was seeing were more likely to have used Ecstasy on 'fun' nights before, rather than being hard core heroin addicts.

He added: "We are seeing younger people, up to the ages of 30 or 35. One was only 12 years old. All hospitals are reporting very young people, males and females in equal numbers. And it is just as much a rich man's drug as a poor man's drug. A lot of those taking it are intelligent, well-educated young people at university."

Dr Wilson said some of those who came into A&E were hallucinating, and many were aggressive.

"They are often accompanied by three or four police officers trying to keep them under control. They are biting and spitting and screaming. It is not a pleasant place to be.

"We are seeing a lot more violent behaviour from people who have taken these types of substances. Some people have gone right to the limit of their mental ability, they are not really with it at all. They have lost their capacity. You can't do much with them except restrain them, which we try not to do.

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"Sometimes we are forced to use further drugs to sedate people who are already under the influence of a number of substances, because it is very, very tricky to manage them.

"They are contributing to the workload in the emergency department. We are having to use double the number of staff to deal with them, and they are taking us away from seeing other people, so they are directly impacting on other patients."

Dr Wilson emphasised that those taking the substances, and the medical staff carrying out the treatments do not know what is in them.

"The drugs vary. This particular group of drugs can have a drug base of almost any type, like amphetamines, cocaine, LSD, or ecstasy. The labs fiddle with it to get it somehow within the law. They then mix some of the substances together, so you have all different types of drugs going off at the same time. Then the person supposedly having a good time may mix it with cannabis, alcohol and nicotine. You have someone who has got a multitude of different drugs in their system, all acting at the same time, and that's the problem.

"Because of that it is difficult for me to ascertain which is the primary substance causing problems. It is hard to know what they have consumed so we have to treat them symptomatically."

Dr Wilson said they did not know what the long term effects of taking the substances might be.

"We can only guess at that. But we know they can cause kidney problems, heart conditions and psychiatric issues, depending on what they have taken. These substances are highly addictive and there are real health issues because people can go downhill from them very quickly.You don't know whether someone is going to hallucinate through them in the future and jump out of a window."

Dr Wilson said the problem of legal highs was getting worse and legislation needed to be brought in quickly.

"It is really easy for people to get hold of. Those supplying them are playing a dangerous game with people's lives. We have not seen any deaths yet, but that is a fear I have.

"When you take a New Psychoactive Substance drug, you have no idea what's in it. You are rolling the dice. It's Russian roulette."