Legal intoxicant

Legal intoxicants, also known as legal drugs or, more commonly, as legal highs, are those intoxicating drugs which are either completely legal or not commonly prohibited by various drug laws. The most widely consumed legal intoxicant is alcohol—legal throughout the vast majority of the world's countries—but a wide array of other drugs are also not specifically banned in many international jurisdictions: these may vary from native intoxicating plants historically used by indigenous cultures to foodstuffs eaten in various parts of the world, to modern compounds and designer drugs that have not been defined as illegal, or even long-standing medicines that have intoxicating or anesthetic side effects. Where legislation imposes a general ban on psychoactive substances (as in Ireland), legal intoxicants are limited to those substances specifically exempted.