in the US the feds (at least the more “science driven” agencies) are a lot more clued up and have already made the better legal highs illegal.
Also, “candy kid” types and even their dealers are much more easily deterred by armed cops and federal agents than a coke/smack/meth dealer with little to lose and who may be sociopathic enough to enjoy the challenges involved!
In the UK, the MDMA drought may have been caused by two things – crooked dealers selling the stuff as coke(!) in London and other cities to novices, with predictable results of people ending up freaking out in the Emergency Department adding to those what already end up there due to being greedy with MDMA (until recently good quality stuff was very affordable)
As part of some new “safer neighbourhoods” initiative, The NHS pass on info about numbers and locations of overdoses to the Police (but not the names of people involved). This, has been going for for at least two and perhaps five years, and as you would expect, results in searches/clampdowns being concentrated around the areas where the overdoses occur.
