Call for ban on head shops

This week a conference heard calls for stricter laws for so called ‘head shops’ that legally sell substances which mimic cocaine, amphetamines and other illegal drugs.

Junior Minister with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, John Curran (pictured) present at the Regional Drugs Task Forces conference in Mullingar, said that Health Minister Mary Harney has been asked to move on banning party pills under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

However conference participants were extremely concerned that while there is much discussion, very little action has been taken to either ban or regulate the substances, many of which are proving dangerous.

There has been a huge increase in the number of head shops in towns all over Ireland.  They have been accused of breaking the rules by serving very young people.  Some open until 4:00am at weekends and offer delivery service.

Also, the actual substances being sold have caused severe psychological reactions in some cases.  A few of the so-called legal drugs that are still on sale here in Ireland have been banned in other countries after people have died from using them.  In Ireland, the laws so far have been lax; age limits are not always adhered to nor uniformly enforced.

John Taffe, national co-ordinator of the Irish Bishops Drugs Initiative (IBDB) was present at the conference.  Although he normally works in the area of combating alcohol abuse and illegal drugs, he says this is an area of huge concern to parents.  He is sending information he obtained at the conference to more than one hundred parishes about head shops and what they sell and how to deal with them.

“We want to get the message out to the huge number of parents who do not know these [legal drugs] are there.  Also just because these are legal does not mean they are safe, they are substances that are more dangerous in many ways than illegal drugs.  That came across from the meeting,” he told ciNews.

He explained that young teenagers think that products from these shops are safe because they are legal.  There were over 300 people present at the conference and John feels they would have filled the room three times over.  “There are so many people wanting knowledge and information.  It shows the concern that people have.”

Parents also rang the Liveline radio programme this week, to tell how their son had become violent after taking such substances, and then for a week after was withdrawn and ‘out of it’.  Other teenagers had had psychotic episodes and were receiving help from the health services for several months.

by Annj Marie Foley