Section 13: Prohibition notices
Subsection (1) enables a senior officer or local authority (the definition of a local authority in section 59 covers county, district and unitary councils) to issue a prohibition notice to a person if conditions A and B are met. A person in this context may be an individual over the age of criminal responsibility (see subsection (5)) or a body, such as a company. The definition of a senior officer in subsection (7) covers senior officers in territorial police forces in the UK, the British Transport Police, the National Crime Agency ("NCA") and Border Force.
	The relevant conditions are set out in subsections (3) and (4). Condition A is that the person issuing the notice reasonably believes that the respondent is carrying on, or is likely to carry on, a prohibited activity. Condition A might apply, for example, in relation to a company marketing psychoactive substances through a website or selling psychoactive substances through a head shop. Condition B requires the issuing officer to be satisfied that it is necessary and proportionate to issue the prohibition notice in order to prevent the respondent carrying on any prohibited activity. The police or a local authority may, for example, identify evidence of prohibited activity at one head shop and use a prohibition notice to tackle the supply of psychoactive substances from other, or all, head shops in the same retail chain.
	A prohibition notice would require a person on whom it is served to desist from carrying out a prohibited activity (subsection (2)). Such a notice may be in general terms or be specific, for example, it could direct an online company to stop offering to supply psychoactive substances from a named website.
	A prohibition notice will be of indefinite duration unless withdrawn (under the provisions in  section 15, 18(5) or 19(3)) save in the case of a notice given to an individual under 18 years, in which case the notice must be for a maximum period of three years (subsection (6)).