INNOVATIVE legislation is needed to tackle the growing number of so-called legal highs which can be ordered over the internet, said a North Yorkshire drugs officer.

DC Paul Johnson said the “infinite tweak ability” of mephedrone meant there was no single answer to tackling the variations of the recently banned danger drug which are appearing for sale on the internet.

He said: “Making something illegal gives us the tools to do deal with it and we can do something about people dealing.

“But we can only deal with what we can deal with – we need some kind of dynamic legislation.”

DC Johnson was responding to Home Secretary Theresa May’s proposals to ban new “legal highs” on a temporary basis, until they could be analysed by government scientists.

Meanwhile the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Professor Les Iverson, admitted that policing the ever-evolving legal-high market was difficult. He said: “At the moment we’re floundering. We haven’t got adequate mechanisms to combat the internet crime. And it is internet crime if you’re selling a banned substance.”

DC Johnson said: “A dynamic ban could help us because it would stop stuff coming through the post – it could be stopped at customs.

“It’s a new phenomenon.” He said. “Cannabis is cannabis but drugs like mephedrone are infinitely tweakable.”

Those who use drugs ordered from the internet, DC Johnson said, were taking a risk.

“Even though they think it’s legal it could have class B constituents,” he said.

“But it’s the harm these things do- if they didn’t hurt anybody we wouldn’t be taking about them now.

“There are people out there who do not care about the chaos and the carnage they cause.”

Mephedrone was reclassified to a class B drug earlier this following a campaign in The Press and a number of incidents where it was linked to the death of young people.

Many of the alternative legal highs bought in the UK are made in China.

“These people can be based anywhere in the world and act with impunity,” said DC Johnson.