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HEAD SHOP DRUGS and, in particular, Ireland’s approach to them, were the subject of much debate in the UK Parliament’s upper house this week – as members discussed a mooted ban on synthetic drugs across Britain.
More than 450 high-street shops and online vendors of legal highs face being closed down under a blanket ban set to come in next year, the Guardian reports.
According to the paper:
The ban will cover a range of synthetic chemical substances designed to mimic traditional illegal drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy and will extend to cover nitrous oxide – laughing gas or “hippy crack” – the second most popular recreational drug in Britain.
Here at home, the Psychoactive Substances Act of 2010 led to the closure of the vast majority of head shops in Ireland – following a similar blanket ban on synthetic drugs.
It followed a surge in popularity in the substances. In the months before the ban, long queues regularly formed outside one of the most popular Dublin city centre head shops, late into the night.
Ireland’s experience
The effect of the ban was instant – with the biggest stores immediately shutting their doors, and placing ‘closed’ signs outside. However, there’s evidence that head shop drugs are still being widely used here – despite the ban on their legal sale.
A major global drug survey, released last week, found 11.9% of people in Ireland surveyed said they had taken a ‘mystery white powder’ in the last 12 months.
More than 2,000 people here responded to the Global Drug Survey - which doesn’t take a cross-section of every demographic, but instead looks to probe trends and attitudes among people who have had some experience using drugs or alcohol.
Meanwhile, doctors and drug workers say that Mephedrone, the former head shop drug (known as ‘snow blow’) is now widely-available in Ireland.
And one habitual drug user who spoke to TheJournal.ie last week said it was “more available than what it was when the shops shut down”.
House of Lords
Debating the planned UK ban this week, a number of members of the House of Lords questioned whether the Irish approach was the best plan to follow.
“It seems that in Ireland the closure of head shops has led to displacement to a more risky market,” Sally Hamwee (Baroness Hamwee) of the Liberal Democrats said.
“Human beings with their frailties will always be human, and that they will, as they have always done, continue to take drugs.
“In other words, there will always be a market. So how do we get to the position of “least harm”?
I suggest that we should look not just at Ireland and Poland but at states such as Oregon in the United States of America, which, in my terms at any rate, are progressive.
Molly Meacher (Baroness Meacher), a former social worker, said experts had warned “the web trade in synthetic psychoactive substances is apparently thriving in Ireland”.
“Not only has Ireland seen an increase in the use of synthetic drugs following the ban, but the banned drugs are, of course, far more dangerous today than they were before.
“They can be purchased only from illegal drug dealers or through the web. Such dealers have no interest whatever in the health of the people who buy materials from them.
They regularly mix the drugs with other agents, as we all know, including poisons that cause untold damage and, indeed, death.
Head shops, Meacher said, “want to look after their customers”.
They do not want to kill or even to harm them. They want them to come back and buy more of their delightful substances.
A number of other members also raised the impact of Ireland’s head shop closures in the course of the debate, which took place on Tuesday afternoon (full searchable transcript here).
We can expect further media reports in the UK on Ireland’s experience banning the synthetic drugs in the coming weeks. A BBC crew will be in Dublin for the next few days compiling a report on the issue.
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Gerry Ryan was instrumental in the media campaign to ban head shops. Fair play to him. Gerry had no time for drugs whatsoever.
A bit early for the humour Fran….
that’s cos he has taken them all
It’s amazing head shops are still legal in England.. The chemicals and shit* in them is unreal.. And yet cannabis is still illegal
I always thought of the head shops as the consequence of our drug laws, they thrived in Ireland off the back of a time of MDMA scarcity and widespread cannabis contamination. Had cannabis and MDMA been regulated, there would have been no market for the stuff.
Maybe it could be argued that the competition of head shops forced the black market to fix some contamination issues but that a separate debate.
A lot of head shop drugs are still being consumed in Ireland in the form of ‘mystery white powders’, as reported in the recent Global Drug Survey, nearly 12% of people surveyed had taken a ‘mystery white powder’ in the last 12 months.
Closure of the head shops in Ireland was a knee jerk reaction by a government in its death throws desperate to do anything that might help prevent its inevitable defeat. It was wildly convenient for them to have a target so as to appear to be doing something. The fact that these and even more dangerous drugs are
In greater use than ever. I say this as someone who has never been to a headshop.
The drugs that were sold in head shops were worst than actual cocaine and ecstasy.
bullshit statement based on nothing! good lad
Amazingly stupid comment in so many ways.
Your the stupid one David because you’ve no clue as to what you’re commenting upon.
So that fact I have taken these things doesn’t qualify me in any way to comment? Why don’t you crawl back underneath your rock, good lad.
Can people please use the names of those who they’re responding to. Oh great my popcorn is burning!
if you remove the word synthetic, you will have the same arguement for other illegal drugs. abit odd to debate one with out the other
Get rid of regulated head shops. People are better off buying from criminals. It help the exchequer!
Isn’t prohibition a swell idea? What could go wrong?
Dave is right by the way. Obviously.
47% of people that use head shops end up mass murderers fact
have your say