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As the red-tops rage over the recent spate of drug-related deaths, one industry providing several legal alternative ‘highs’ is thriving.
When a new multimillion euro Irish industry emerges, you can expect a queue of politicians, financial institutions and development agencies eager to heap praise on the people who have succeeded in getting this latest roar out of the Celtic tiger.
There may even be an invite to Aras an Uachtarain for a congratulatory cup of tea with the President, and acceptance speeches to be made at the Entrepreneur of the Year awards.
None of that, though, has happened to the owners of the 24 drug paraphernalia, or ‘head’, shops that are operating in Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Dundalk, Galway and Mullingar. Instead, theirs is a business conducted against the backdrop of intense Garda scrutiny, predominantly negative media coverage and threats - some empty, some real - from self-appointed ‘community policing’ groups.
‘‘I’m not going to do the ‘poor me’ routine, but yes, it’s not always the easiest business to be in,” says Shane O’Connor, owner of the Dublin Head Shop in Temple Bar’s Crow Street. O’Connor opened the shop there in 2004, and was recently elected chairman of the Irish Head Shops Association.
‘‘A lot of the difficulties arise from people not realising how we operate. They think we don’t pay tax or Vat, which we do, and that we sell to anybody who comes in off the street, which we don’t.
‘‘All association members subscribe to a code of conduct, whereby nobody who is intoxicated or less than 18 years of age gets served. It’s a voluntary code, but we’d be happy for it to be made law.”
While O’Connor is conciliatory in his tone, another head shop owner, who declined to be identified, complains of various forms of harassment.
‘‘I’ve had customers scared off by Garda officers taking turns to stand outside my premises, and I’ve been accused of selling cannabis ‘under the counter’, which in my position I’d be mad to do,” he says. ‘‘I’ve run businesses where if you’re a couple of days late with your Vat returns no one’s bothered, but when I was 24 hours overdue recently, I got slapped with a fine. Also, the credit card companies have branded us a ‘high risk’ business, so we can only take cash.”
When the first Irish head shop opened in 2000, the bulk of its income was derived from sales of rolling papers, pipes, grinders, seeds, lights, propagators and other items associated with the growing and use of cannabis.
That changed two years later when, thanks to the exploitation of a legal loophole, it became possible to sell fresh magic mushrooms and similarly psychoactive ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ truffles in Ireland. By the time the loophole was closed in 2004, a drugs prevalence study showed that 4 per cent of the population here had tried magic mushrooms, putting it ahead of ecstasy (3.8 per cent) and cocaine (3.1per cent) in the usage league table.
‘‘Some big money was made during the magic mushroom years, because you’re talking about something that’s naturally occurring and can be grown locally from spores,” says a now-retired Irish wholesaler.
‘‘My profit on a slow week was €1,500, on a good one it was €3,000. As for what was being made from ‘mushies’ nationally, I’d guess something between €3and€4million per annum, which was a nice little earner for the taxman - who was happy to take his cut.”
With magic mushrooms and truffles now fully proscribed under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the mantle of head shop bestseller has been assumed by 1-Benzylpiperazine (aka BZP), which has been marketed as a safer, legal alternative to ecstasy.
Originally synthesised in 1944 as a cattle de-wormer, BZP was re-branded as a ‘party pill’ in 1999 by New Zealander Matt Bowden, whose Stargate company kick-started an industry that now has an annual domestic turnover of NZ$30 million (€15.57 million).
With New Zealand often compared to Ireland in terms of demographic breakdown and societal attitudes, it could be a portent of things to come.
‘‘The BZP market in your country is probably where we were around 2002,” says Bowden, who has helped with the formulation of the Head Shop Association of Ireland’s code of practice. ‘‘We had several years of sharp growth, after which it settled at the present figure. If not identical, I imagine the Irish experience will be quite similar to the New Zealand one.”
While acknowledging that party pill brands like FREQ (Psychedelic Sensuality),TWEQ (Euphoric Stimulation) and PEAQ (Strong Euphoric Stimulation) are making Stargate healthy profits, the 36-year-old former musician and recovering amphetamine addict is adamant that his motives aren’t purely financial.
‘‘The New Zealand government commissioned one of the universities to carryout a survey, which revealed that almost 60,000 people here have abandoned illegal drugs in favour of BZP,’’ Bowden says.
‘‘Politicians and law enforcement agencies the world over acknowledge that prohibition has done nothing to diminish the supply of, and demand for, illegal drugs, so we should be coming up with legal alternatives that are as safe as possible and ideally dispensed by people with pharmaceutical knowledge.
‘‘Our industry pays NZ$10 million (€5.2 million) a year in tax, which far outweighs the cost of treating the small minority of people who experience medical problems as a result of taking BZP.”
Accusations that he’s being selective with his facts intensified last Valentine’s Day, when a 23year-old DJ, Ben Rodden, slipped into a coma after taking an unspecified number of party pills. Sensitive to the media outcry in what is an election year, the New Zealand government immediately announced plans to ban them, but has subsequently decided the issue is worthy of measured debate.
‘‘BZP is exactly the same as alcohol in that you can either choose to use it or abuse it,’’ Bowden says.
‘‘To put things in perspective - over the last seven years, 100,000 adults have consumed 26 million pills on nine-and-a-half million occasions, and there have been no recorded deaths or any significant lasting injuries as a result.”
In Ireland, three head shop owners say they’re selling between €3,000 and €4,000 worth of BZP a week.
Multiply that by the number of head shops stocking it, and the suggestion is that the BZP market here is worth between €3.75 million and €5 million a year. The mark-up being almost 100 per cent, it’s a lucrative product.
‘‘I don’t know exactly what other shops are turning over, but that sounds about right,” Shane O’Connor agrees. ‘‘The feedback we’re getting from people is that they’re buying BZP instead of ecstasy, which means less money for the criminal gangs who control the illegal drug trade here and abroad.”
Cutting criminals out of the equation is often cited as a reason for not banning substances such as BZP, but does it hold sway with officialdom?
‘‘We’ve had a meeting with a government department at which we presented our case, but what impact, if any, that’ll have I don’t know,” O’Connor says. ‘‘Even if they ban BZP, there’ll still be head shops, because people want the products, which with the internet can be sourced from literally anywhere in the world.”
How would he sum up the overall health of the legal highs industry here?
‘‘Pretty buoyant. I’m opening my fourth store this week, The Hemporium in Mullingar, and we’re wholesaling all over the country. A couple of shops have opened and closed in a relatively short space of time, but that’s probably more down to the way they were run than a lack of demand. It’s an industry that’s here to stay.”
Stuart Clark is assistant editor of Hot Press
Five head shop bestsellers
BZP A New Zealand import sold under brand names such as EFX, Asylum and Charl-eeze, and which closely mimics the effects of ecstasy. That means rushes, euphoria, hyperactivity and a hangover-style comedown. €10 per pill.
Spice Gold A smokeable cannabis substitute comprising 14 different herbs, plants and aromatic extracts, including baybean, brava, red clover, rose, Siberian motherwort, marshmallow, rose and honey. €5 for 400mg.
Blue Lotus Flowers Looks like the sort of brightly coloured pot-pourri you’d give your granny for Christmas, but smoked or soaked in a glass of water and swilled around the mouth, it produces a mild sedative effect. €18 for 25 grams.
Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds A mild hallucinogen used by South American Indians in religious ceremonies and containing lysergic acid amide, a close relative of LSD. €5 per seed.
Liquid Kratom extract Grown and commonly used in Thailand, where it’s renowned for its opium-like qualities. €15 for 200ml.
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