THE MOTHER of a beautiful and talented" medical student who died after taking a legal high has welcomed a new blanket ban on the drugs.

Hester Stewart - a medical student and cheerleader at the University of Sussex died after taking the legal high GBL in 2009.

Following her death, her mother Maryon launched the Angelus Foundation charity to fight to have the so-called legal highs outlawed.

At midnight yesterday the Psychoactive Substances Act came into force, criminalising the production, distribution, sale and supply of the drugs.

Offenders will face up to seven years in prison under the law.

Ms Stewart, who previously described her grief as "a nightmare from which you hope to wake up, but never do" yesterday said how proud she was to have helped introduce the new law in the hope of preventing further deaths.

She said: "While it won't give me back my beautiful, talented 21 year old daughter, it is a comfort to know that other children will remain well and lives will be saved.

"We now expect the high street head shop trade to be demolished. These shops have been pushing untested and often addictive substances for huge financial gain. It is a pernicious trade preying on people's vulnerability.

"Thankfully it is over for them - we can now move forwards with more young people safe from the harms of legal highs.

"It has taken seven long years of hard work and today represents a real milestone for Angelus. We are still lobbying Government to fund awareness campaigns that will prevent young people being harmed or dying needlessly like my daughter, Hester.

"I am immensely proud of Team Angelus who have battled against bureaucratic forces and those who would not see what a danger these substances pose."

On April 26, 2009, Hester drank a small amount of alcohol at an awards ceremony with her cheerleading teammates. She later took a small amount of the then legal drug GBL and died.

Maryon was making Sunday lunch, singing along to the radio, when two police women rang on her doorbell to break the awful news.

After Hester's death she turned into an ardent campaigner - first campaigning to have individual drugs like GBL banned - but new legal highs were being invented quicker than the law makers could act.

Describing her determination to become an ardent anti-drugs campaigner, she told The Argus previously: "When you lose a child it is like losing a limb. It is something that is never going to go away.

“I am trying to do something in Hester’s memory that’s positive and stops other families having the same trauma and life sentence."