Pubdate: Thu, 18 Mar 2010
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Page: A1, front page, first column, continued on page A9
Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Times
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/bc7El3Yo
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Henry Chu, Reporting from Dublin, Ireland
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/legal+highs
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/head+shops

Column One

BLARNEY STONED ON BATH SALTS

New-Wave Head Shops, Fast Becoming a Fixture in Ireland, Sell Cheap 
and Legal Highs Thinly Disguised As Other Products

Like plenty of hale and hearty young Irishmen, Chris knows just how 
to unwind after a tough day at the office: He reaches for his bath salts.

He gets the water ready -- but in a glass, not the tub. Then, despite 
a warning on the box that it's "not for human consumption," he pops a 
capsule in his mouth and downs it with a swig.

For the next few hours, he's happy and hopped up, full of energy for 
an evening of clubbing, without a hangover lying in wait.

"I find it much less debilitating" than alcohol, confides the 
29-year-old bookkeeper, who can pop two or three capsules a night. He 
asked that his full name not be used.

Such "bath salts" are popular these days throughout Ireland, not for 
a relaxing soak at home but because many contain a party drug known 
as mephedrone. They're part of the literally dizzying array of 
products being sold in stores offering customers cheap and legal 
highs, stuff marketed as bath salts or incense but designed to be 
smoked, snorted or swallowed.

The new-wave head shops are fast becoming a fixture in this island 
nation, multiplying with astonishing speed from just a few several 
years ago to as many as 100 today. Much of the growth has occurred in 
the last 12 months, even as the rest of the Irish economy underwent a 
painful contraction.

Authorities are increasingly concerned about the potential effect of 
head shops and their products on crime and the nation's health. 
Parents, too, are worried about their children's exposure to 
substances that mimic the effects of outlawed drugs such as cocaine 
and marijuana.

Officials are groping for ways to limit, regulate or ban head shops, 
which operate with so little restriction that many stay open till 4 
a.m., supplying eager clubbers through metal hatches in their doors, 
like shady pharmaceutical take-aways. By contrast, the sale of 
alcohol is far more regulated.

That the head shops aren't subject to heavier control is due in large 
part to clever packaging. By peddling products advertised, however 
misleadingly, for other uses, the stores avoid strict food and drug 
safety regulations and receive virtually the same treatment as 
retailers that sell clothes, books, home furnishings or other 
"harmless" consumer goods.

The charade fools no one, of course, least of all the manufacturers, 
who indulge in some sly descriptions on their labels. The makers of 
Snow "bath salts," for instance, inform buyers that adding their 
"fine white powder" to the bath will make them chatty and peppy, but 
warn against the presence of heavy machinery in the bathroom.

"They're labeled as 'not for human consumption,' but when you go into 
the shop, you're told how to consume it, how to inject it," lawmaker 
Joe Costello said. "We have a range of substances that are sold that 
really are not regulated, that nobody knows precisely what's in them, 
nobody knows the quantities that are being sold or taken."

Some insalubrious consequences are already beginning to emerge.

Hospitals have reported an increase in the number of emergency room 
patients suffering from hallucinations, panic attacks and delirium 
brought on by mind-altering products such as Ivory Wave, which is 
sold as bath salts.

Here in the Irish capital, residents and businesses were alarmed last 
month by fires believed to be arson at two head shops, possibly set 
by drug dealers angry about the competition.

Even so, Costello is leery of banning the shops, which many fear 
would drive up the illegal drug trade and open the door wider to 
gangs and organized crime.

The government decided this month to outlaw a range of substances 
found in head shops, including mephedrone, which mimics the effect of 
ecstasy; the ban will take effect in June. But targeting specific 
substances can also be an exercise in frustration, triggering an 
endless cat-and-mouse game in which manufacturers keep tweaking their 
products to stay one step ahead of the law.

Costello has settled on a softer approach: He's pushing a bill in the 
Dail, the lower house of parliament, that would subject head shops to 
more planning controls, which could at least help limit where they 
can open -- for example, not too close to schools.

Shane O'Connor, director of a chain of head shops, sees some sense in 
that. In fact, O'Connor says he's open to stricter guidelines on 
window displays and a ban on sales to anyone younger than 18.

It's the idea of closing down the shops that he finds absurd.

"Prohibition doesn't remove demand," he said. "The only way to remove 
demand for illegal drugs is to offer safer legal alternatives."

In many ways, today's head shop craze is merely an extension of a 
wave of drug use that has swept Ireland since the 1970s.

Heroin and other hard drugs were popular in the beginning. Then 
cocaine and crack started making inroads, especially during Ireland's 
economic boom of the last 20 years, which transformed the Emerald 
Isle into the Celtic Tiger.

Now recreational users have an expanded menu of drugs to choose from, 
at much lower, recession-friendly prices.

"It's a lot easier now," said Thomas, 19, a slightly scruffy college 
student who declined to give his last name. "It's all legal at the moment."

He had just bought a packet of Ice Gold, an "aromatherapy resin 
extract" by a company engaged in "botanical research." Two grams cost 
about $35. Thomas buys a packet a week to take home and smoke; he no 
longer has to badger friends for pot. (Online discussions say Ice 
Gold contains resin from cannabis, but shop workers insist that it 
"has no cannabinoids.")

Nothing on the box, though, says exactly what's in Ice Gold or how to 
use it safely. There's only an effusive, but not particularly 
helpful, description of how such plant extracts "have for millennia 
been used in shamanic rituals."

That lack of information upsets Christopher Luke, a vocal critic of 
head shops in the southern city of Cork, where a store called the 
Funky Skunk sits on one of the main shopping drags.

An emergency room doctor, Luke has seen some of the ugly outcomes of 
unregulated drug use.

"The consequences of head shop products are sometimes spectacular in 
terms of psychosis, delirium and what they need in terms of 
treatment," he said.

His hospital admits a head shop case every week to 10 days, adding to 
the strain on Ireland's overburdened healthcare system, Luke said.

"Head shop drugs are in every village and town of this island," he 
said. "Even if 1% of consumers come to harm, it could be very, very difficult."

Like others, Luke counsels against rushing through inadequate or 
ill-thought-out legislation to deal with the situation.

But Costello, the lawmaker, said some stopgap measure needs to be 
taken now, especially if Ireland wants to avoid turning into a 
destination for the legally blissed-out.

"We leave that type of tourism," he said, "to Amsterdam." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake