SO-CALLED ‘legal highs’, linked to addiction and even death, should be banned as soon as possible, AMs said.

Some recently developed drugs can be bought and sold legally online or on the high street due to a loophole as the government has not yet had time to restrict their use.

Gwent Police shut down the shop Focus on Commercial Street in Newport on Monday, after reports of children urinating and vomiting in the street after buying legal highs. The shop, which sells e-cigarettes, will remain closed for at least three months after neighbours testified to the problems caused.

This was the second shop selling legal highs closed down in Newport this year, with Chill on Commercial Street also banned from trading for three months in February.

The Welsh Government commissioned an inquiry into the use of ‘new psychoactive substances’, a term politicians prefer as they say the phrase ‘legal highs’ implies they are safe to use.

Discussing the issue at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay earlier today, Assembly Members heard that 60 deaths in 2013 involved legal highs in England and Wales, a 15 per cent increase on the previous year.

The Welsh Government wants the UK to take the Republic of Ireland’s approach. Instead of considering each drug individually, Ireland bans all psychoactive drugs and specifies exceptions such as alcohol.

Legal highs became widely known in the late 2000s when mephedrone swept to popularity as a cheap and easily accessible high similar to ecstasy and speed. It was made a Class B drug in 2010 but other potentially dangerous drugs are still legally available.

Labour AM for Blaenau Gwent, Alun Davies said the spread of mephedrone had been “devastating” for his constituency. “It was described by police as the biggest issue facing us in terms of a drugs epidemic in Gwent and one officer said he had seen nothing like this in over 30 years,” he said.

“It is shocking that drugs can be reached by any child or any young person sitting at home with access to a computer. We need to deal with that. If we don’t, the young people of this country will pay the price.”

Plaid AM for South Wales East, Lindsay Whittle said: “The effects of some of these modified drugs are worse than those inflicted by Class A drugs. Any individual or group that exploits some young people’s tendency to want to experiment and try to get rich no matter what harm they are doing needs to be found out and brought to book.”

He added: “We need to take every opportunity through schools, care services, social media, to make them illegal.

“Parents be warned – your child’s life could be at stake.”

Janet Finch-Saunders, Tory AM for Aberconwy, said Gwent Police had told the inquiry legal high use was worse in South Wales than further north, although a problem throughout the country. She added that recorded cases of legal highs use could be the “tip of the iceberg”, as the government does not have enough data.

Deputy health minister Vaughan Gething said over the past five years there has been a gradual change in drugs use, with demand for traditional drugs like heroin declining and the use of legal highs increasing.

Mr Gething said: “Policy makers have had to adapt to keep up with this fast-changing landscape. This is not easy to do, because as soon as you get to grips with one substance, a new one with a slightly different chemical structure is there to take its place.”

He said legislation in this area was controlled by the UK government but the Welsh Government would push for ‘greater agility’ in the response to new drugs.

Recommendations agreed by the Welsh Government include a plan to gather more data about how often legal highs are used, campaigns to educate young people and parents about the dangers, a review of advice given in schools and a consideration of how to deal with increasing use of legal highs in Welsh prisons.