Dundee could be free of shops selling deadly legal highs for the first time in years, the Tele can today reveal.
Trading Standards officers and police targeted five separate stores in a week-long operation during December.
The shops were suspected to be selling the potentially dangerous substances.
In total, 81 packets of the goods were lifted by the authorities, which an estimated combined value of about £810.
But Trading Standards has received no new reports of legal highs being on sale made since the confiscations that the products, also known as New Psychoactive Substances (NPS).
When the Tele visited shops said to have sold them in the past, some appeared closed and others insisted they no longer sell the goods.
The owner of Misty Heaven in the Keiller Shopping Centre said they had stopped selling legal highs before Trading Standards launched their operation.
Just The Thing on Albert Street was boarded up, another was under new ownership who said he had never sold the substances, while the third known premises on the road appeared to be closed.
Pipe ‘n’ Roll on Strathmartine Road had its metal shutters down. The owners said in December that without legal highs they would have to shut.
Trading Standards manager Ken Daly said his team would react to any reports of shops selling legal highs. He said: “There was a number of shops in Dundee selling them quite openly for a long time. The operation was part of a nationwide thing at the time, albeit we did it a week earlier than other places.
“We have not been made aware of any of them selling the products again. If we did receive this information we would certainly take action.”
But while the products have been removed from Dundee shops, it is understood folk can still freely purchase them off the internet for their own use and to potentially sell on.
Meanwhile, the current batch of NPS seized during December’s operation by Trading Standards and Police Scotland is being carefully tested by scientists to see just how dangerous they are.
It was thought at the time of the crackdown there had been 17 different types of the substances found.
Mr Daly hopes to have the results back soon and he said the matter could be referred to the procurator fiscal.
He added: “We are currently waiting for forensic analysis to be carried out on the substances before we decide what to do next. What they will be looking for is if there is anything in them that could potentially cause harm.
“That’s what it’s all about, the safety of these products being sold and the harm they can do. If the tests come back and show the substances could cause harm then we would take further action. We could then decide whether to report the matter to the procurator fiscal or whether to see forfeiture from the courts so we can dispose of them.”
Penalties for offences in connection with the sale of dangerous products can be up to 12 months imprisonment, or a fine of up to £20,000, or both.
Health and social work convener Ken Lynn said: “Some credit has to be go to Councillor Georgia Cruickshank who has had a high profile campaign against so-called legal highs.
“This has to be welcomed because people didn’t know what they were buying. My only concern is that without the legal high shops it goes underground and becomes less regulated, but hopefully this whole thing has helped raise awareness about the dangers of them.”