Legal intoxicants, also known as
legal drugs or, more commonly, as
legal highs, are those
intoxicating drugs which are either completely legal or uncommonly 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.