The illicit drug trade is in the spotlight as never before, but the shops selling legally available recreational drugs see themselves as part of the solution rather than the problem, writes Fiona McCann.
Entering a head shop - or "alternative lifestyle" shop, as they are officially known - can be a hallucinogenic experience, and that's without even making a purchase. Engendering a feeling not unlike that experienced when stepping into the S&M section of Anne Summers, there's something winningly transgressive about the shelves of paraphernalia, pipes, papers and pills. But, even as you look involuntarily over your shoulder while marvelling at such wonders as four-hose hookah pipes and collapsible bongs, you're only fooling yourself: you're not crossing any line in here, because everything for sale is legal.
"We're not the bad guys," says Shane O'Connor, who owns a chain of head shops around Ireland. "The legal highs industry is there to offer safe alternatives to illicit substances." O'Connor enforces a strict over-18s policy in his shops, and says his employees are trained to advise customers on the safest ways to consume the products on offer.
Helpful, attentive and knowledgeable about what they are selling, those who work in head shops are usually willing to talk customers through any concerns about the products for sale, and offer the kind of free and personal advice that's pretty much extinct in many other retail outlets in the country.
So why does it feel so sinful? Maybe it's because head shops are still mostly about getting high, even if, in this case, those highs are legal. Customers can walk in off the street, make their purchases over the counter, and leave with a receipt, without any fear of being apprehended by the law. They also leave with a very clear idea of what they've just purchased, and it's this kind of information that is convincing more and more people to shop there.
One of those people, John (not his real name), is 18 years old and has just bought a product called Spice Gold. Said to produce an effect similar to marijuana, it contains, according to the list of ingredients printed clearly on the packet, Baybean, Blue Lotus, Lion's Tail, Lousewort, Indian Warrior, Dwarf Scullcap, Maconha Brava, Pink Lotus, Marshmallow, Red Clover, Rose, Siberian Motherwort, Vanilla and Honey. It is a combination of legal substances, which ensures it can be sold over the counter by registered retailers.
While he admits to having smoked marijuana, John prefers shopping in head shops for his highs. "It's a bit safer to buy there than on the street, because some of the people you get marijuana off wouldn't be the best kind of people," he explains.
SPICE GOLD IS just one of a number of products that boast such effects, with the recent run on a similar product called Smoke in Galway city revealing just how popular legal highs have become.
Smoke, which one customer says gave her "a champagne high", comes in a slick grey tin containing three grams of "natural, organic extras and concentrates". According to O'Connor, whose company orders the mixture of herb extracts from a European supplier and repackages its content for the Irish market, much of its recent popularity was due to a supply problem experienced in connection with a rival product, which left Smoke the only product of its kind on the market.
Products such as Smoke and Spice Gold mimic the marijuana effect, while others claim to produce highs closer to drugs such as ecstasy or cocaine. It's quite a claim for a legal product, and leads some to question how long they will remain freely available.
It's worth remembering that most of the drugs which are now illegal were once easily available, in many cases over the counter. Cocaine was liberally sprinkled in cigarettes and LSD was once used as a "cure" for a variety of psychiatric illnesses before it was outlawed in the US. And the most commonly consumed legal drug in Ireland, alcohol, was banned in the US from 1920 to 1933.
It takes time for any system of prohibition to catch up with a market where new substances are appearing all the time. It wasn't until the death of Colm Hodkinson in October 2005 that the sale of hallucinogenic magic mushrooms was banned in Ireland, but, even then, the prohibition extended only to a specific genus. Those looking for a hallucinogenic high could simply switch to still-legal alternatives such as Salvia divinorum, a psychoactive herb traditionally used by Mexican shamans for spiritual healing sessions.
One product which has come under increasing scrutiny, but is still legally sold in Ireland, is benzylpiperazine, known as BZP. It is reported to provide users with an experience similar to ecstasy. BZP has already been outlawed in a number of countries, including the US.
A new bill introduced in New Zealand, where it has been legal up until now, is set to ensure its reclassification as an illegal substance there, though original plans to have the ban in place by Christmas have now been shelved until after the country's summer holidays.
O'Connor admits that products containing BZP are among the biggest sellers in his shops, and while he says the product has not been directly linked with any deaths despite worldwide sales in the millions, medical experts point to the potential risks involved.
JOHN O'DONNELL, consultant in emergency medicine in University Hospital Galway, says a number of patients have presented in the hospital's emergency department after taking BZP. "We've had a trickle of them over the past six months," he says, adding that such products could potentially cause death. "Certainly with drugs like this, particularly when they're mixed with other chemicals such as alcohol or other substances, there is a real potential here for seizures and cardiac arrhythmia."
ACCORDING TO THE Department of Health, "a specific risk assessment procedure for new psychoactive substances carried out by the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has found that the use of BZP can lead to medical problems even if long-term effects of the substance are still unknown."
The European Commission is currently waiting for a decision from the Council of Ministers regarding its request for BZP to be declared a controlled substance. If the proposal is adopted, Ireland will have a year to act on the decision and introduce control measures and criminal sanctions.
But would banning BZP make a difference? Already, new products are hitting the shops, such as those containing a south Asian leaf called kratom. As with BZP, products such as Kratom Gold appear to have operated in an opposite manner to the predicted "gateway" effect by bringing people who have been using illegal substances back to the right side of the law.
"Many people come off heroin through methadone, then wean themselves off methadone through kratom," says David Howlett, who works in a head shop on Upper Fownes Street in Dublin. Howlett sees the legal high industry as "a drug harm-minimisation solution - it's an alternative to the real thing, but in a safer product."
O'Connor echoes these sentiments. "It's harm reduction. You reduce the demand, and that's how you stop the drug problems, because if you reduce demand you reduce supply," he says. "There's no doubt that prohibition hasn't worked." O'Connor says head shops in Ireland self-regulate at the moment, but he would welcome the introduction of an external regulation system.
He sees the development of a sustainable legal high industry as a way to combat the risks involved in illegal drugs. "If there's a sustainable industry, which is what we want, then they have the opportunity to develop even safer alternatives. In prohibition, they take one drug, ban it, and then that gets replaced by a more dangerous version," he says.
For the most part, the products sold in head shops provide a full list of their contents, as well as instructions on dosage and clear warnings against mixing the products with alcohol or other substances.
As O'Connor points out, however, instructions can only go so far. "You can't legislate for stupidity, because the guy who wants to go out and take 10 party pills is the same guy who goes out and takes 10 ecstasy tablets, or who goes out and drinks 10 pints."