Ennis "head shop" legality under review

Battleflag

fenianjohn wrote: »

because it will be my tax money paying for the hospital treatment you will receive when you o.d on drugs or become mentally ill in years to come. then you will be crying foul because no one stopped you weaking your life waa waa

I think it will be my own health insurance that pays for any medical treatment I will ever have to receive, even if it is drug related.

Who cares anyway? They are going to have new substances when this ban comes in, so we can get even more of our heads! And laugh when there are 10 head shops in town!

Go march some more

CptSternn

Again, even if they close down every one, you can still order it online, and people will do just that.

You can't unring a bell.

Whats sad is many of these shops have been open for 5-10 years, with no problems what-so-ever. Now that the economy is fecked, there are no jobs, and the current government is rampant with scandals, all of a sudden shutting down these shops is top priority!

How exactly is it going to help us pay for the banking bail outs?

It's a smokescreen. Anyone who buys into it is not helping, your merely allowing the current shower of corrupt politicians to sway your opinion from what is really happening out there.

They can't stop these shops, as it was said, they can always develop new products if you ban the ones there. People now know about them, and can order them from the comfort of their own home online as easy as they would a pizza. All this hype is nothing more than the politicians trying to avert attention from real political issues they do not want to talk about.

And people wonder how our great nation got in such a state. It had nothing to do with head shops.

Clareman

They banned alcohol in America for a while and all it did was make bad people rich and give screenwriters loads of ammo for movies.

Shulgin

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/05/mephedrone-drug-media-scare-newspapers

Nic Fleming

Hysteria and inaccuracies have been the main ingredients of the media coverage of mephedrone

Even Chris Morris might have had trouble making it up. In 1997, the celebrated satirist tricked public figures including Rolf Harris, Noel Edmonds and David Amess MP into warning Britain's teenagers of the dangers of taking "cake", a new "made-up pyschoactive compound" also known as Basildon puke plates and loony toad quack. Bernard Manning told how one girl had thrown up her own pelvis. Amess later tabled a parliamentary question asking the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to look into banning cake.

Thirteen years on and the ACMD is in the news again, this time advising the government to ban the all-too-real drug mephedrone (on Friday, Eric Carlin, an ACMD member, resigned in protest). Most people in the UK had not heard of the substance until three weeks ago, when police said they believed Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, had taken it shortly before being found dead on 15 March. The media went into overdrive, reporting a suspected death toll of six within a week and 26 within a fortnight. Children as young as eight were reported to be on it and 180 pupils from just one school in Leicestershire had apparently gone off sick after taking it. The Sun launched a campaign for a ban.

Last Monday, Professor Les Iversen, the ACMD chairman, said the substance had been implicated in 26 deaths in England and Scotland. This formed part of the evidence in the ACMD report advising the home secretary, Alan Johnson, that mephedrone should be a class B drug. Johnson promptly announced the government's intention to seek all-party agreement for emergency legislation.

So everyone should be happy. The reality is that there is yet to be a single death that a coroner blamed primarily on mephedrone. Leicestershire county council says there is no school at which 180 pupils have gone off sick. And no teenagers from Durham or anywhere else have attempted to rip off their own scrotums while on the drug.

The media's coverage has angered some who work in the drugs policy field. "The misreporting of mephedrone deaths is a crass example of the potentially lethal alliance between press and politicians that by default ends in a ban that often creates far greater harms than those caused by use," said Danny Kushlick, of the drugs charity Transform, which opposes prohibition.

The most widely reported mephedrone case before March was that of Gabrielle Price, a 14-year-old who died "after taking" mephedrone in November. Few papers bothered to record the results of toxicology tests released in December showing the cause of her death was "cardiac arrest following broncho-pneumonia which resulted from streptococcal A infection".

Her case was included as one of 27 mephedrone-implicated deaths compiled by the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths. In one case, a woman died as a result of the "adverse effects of [the heroin substitute] methadone and mephedrone". Of the remaining 25 deaths yet to be ruled on by a coroner, the presence of mephedrone has been demonstrated in 10 cases, with test results pending in the others. "I'm not saying that 18 deaths in England can be attributed to misuse of mephedrone," Iversen said on Monday. "We don't know that yet, so let's not be too hasty in our conclusions."

In November last year, the Sun published a story under the headline: "Legal drug teen ripped his scrotum off". Quoting a police report, the paper said an unnamed teenager from Durham needed hospital treatment after mephedrone made him him "rip off his own scrotum". An internal police report had said: "One individual states that after using it for 18 hours his hallucinations led him to believe that centipedes were crawling over him and biting him, and this led him to receive hospital treatment after he ripped his own scrotum off." However, it carried on: "This information was taken from an internet blog and as such it should be treated with the credence such information deserves." The officer said he took the story from a website that sells mephedrone, and that his warning was not printed. The owner of the website that hosted this blog, mephedrone.com, says the posting was a joke.

Drugs advisers fear further escalation in the drugs war ahead of an election. A spokesman for the Home Office said: "The advice and recommendations made by the ACMD are based on evidence from academic experts, police and customs data, toxicology reports, scientific papers and overseas organisations."

firesidechat

If i was nick fleming and wanted my article to be taken serious, i certainly
would not be using quotes from the SUN.

Hobo Sapiens

CptSternn wrote: »

Making the substances they sell there 'illegal' is nothing more than political rhetoric for the masses.

First, most of the substances sold there can be bought in other forms. When they made GHB illegal in America they soon found out like 99% of all floor cleaners contained GHB, which after the law passed where also illegal......

Any chance of a link to evidence of your assertion?

PS: Legalize all drugs! Nobody should tell you what you can or cannot ingest, even if it's "bad for you".

Shulgin

firesidechat wrote: »

If i was nick fleming and wanted my article to be taken serious, i certainly
would not be using quotes from the SUN.

The article is about the misinformation and Hype reported by the likes of the SUN.

golfball37

This shop was closed over the weekend despite the sign on door saying "open".

Anyone know the score?

Battleflag

Went down there myself on Sunday but it was closed, this is probably a good thing...

fenianjohn

exioot wrote: »

Went down there myself on Sunday but it was closed, this is probably a good thing...

which shop is closed in ennis i read on the net that the one in chapel lanee is closed so is theone in the carpark closed now or was it just closed over the weekend?

Battleflag

The one in chapel lane is closed permanently, not sure about the one in Parnell street car park. Went down at about 6pm on Sunday and it was closed, should have been open till 7 I think..

ah well

CptSternn

Did anyone else watch the docu 'Head Shops' they did on RTE 1 last week? It was actually pretty brilliant. I expect them to do a total hatchet job and attack the head shops, whereas they were not only very impartial, their reporting probably did more to help head shops than hurt in the end.

First, you had them go into many statistics that many didn't know.

For example, since head shops really took off a year ago, drug related arress have dropped by like 70%. They said police have mixed feeling because of this. It also said head shops managed to do what billions in tax payer dollars and Gardai for 30 years could not do.

It then went on to say that the head shops in Dublin bring in lots of tax dollars. With the main one (Nirvana) bringing in 6 million in revenue last year alone, paying over €70,000 a month in taxes - thats like ten times the amount a normal shop would bring in, and doing it in this economic environment. This means councils are really pressed, as passing laws to ban these shops mean shutting down their largest source of sales revenue in many places.

They then showed two people who blamed all their problems on drugs - funny thing was that one guy claimed a packet he bought at a head shop made him want to kill himself. During his interview then then let out a few details that the tabloids failed to mention, like he was taking the stuff daily, for eight months, along with a list of other drugs. But he was able to say the one packet he took on the day he tried to kill himself must have been cause of his suicide attempt. Years of heroin abuse had nothing to do with it.

This was followed by another girl who was in the tabloids - she too was not only underage, but took other stuff and was able to tell after two days of drinking and taking drugs that it must have been the head shop stuff that made her sick. No one asked why she was underage, drinking at clubs. Her mother said it was 'normal' for her to be drunk. It ended with her saying she didn't think the stuff was addictive, because she stopped taking it six months ago without any issues, and then told the reporter she might try it again because it was fun.

The best part was listening to the protesters they interviewed. They sounded like a bunch of eejits. EVerything they claimed they knew they claimed they had 'read'. They stated 'kids are buying this stuff' - the reporter asked have you had problems with kids getting this stuff then? They said 'well no, but we read in other towns it has been a problem, although we never saw it happen here'. One guy was asked did he not think people would just go to the next town over to buy stuff, 10 minutes away, if they did shut the shop. He replied - 'we are in a recession, people can't afford to drive 10 minutes - thats too much petrol'. Judging by his outfit and pretty dim response I'm guessing he doesn't know you can order online (at half the price of the shops) and have it delivered overnight to your front door anywhere in Ireland.

It ended with another few stats - first that Nirvana, which they showed with time-lapse photography from across the road, has over 900 customers a night in Dublin every Saturday. Each one spends at least €40. That is one shop in one place. The customers come from all age groups and walks of life. Even if they do ban the head shops, it is safe to say people will continue to find ways to buy what is there. The best they can hope for is to create a whole new criminal underworld if a sweeping ban does go into effect.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle, you can't unring a bell.

Instead of getting €70,000 a month in taxes (from one shop), the government will have to pay treble that to hire new Gardai to keep the stuff off the streets.

finbarrk

exioot wrote: »

The one in chapel lane is closed permanently, not sure about the one in Parnell street car park. Went down at about 6pm on Sunday and it was closed, should have been open till 7 I think..

ah well

Good.

billy the squid

loctite wrote: »

Fenian John......... GFYS.

Why would anyone go protrest for something that is legal......You and your kind seem to think that recreational drugs are the anti Christ incarnate........ Well why don't you feck off to some 3rd world country where such possession charges are greeted with a more severe penalty......

You and your group think are what is wrong with this country. You seem to think its fine to go out and get pissed with all your fenian fiends.....but yet head shops are some sort of a problem..... we'll see in the morning how many drink related problems are reported in the papers..... get a grip on reality...

Why should people like you, make decisions about what chemicals/substances I can put in my body?????

Banned

Battleflag

@CptSternn
sounds like a good watch, just after checking the rte player and sadly it's not up there. Damn would have liked to have seen it

dh0661

According to news reports today due to new regulations, alot of these shops have closed down today. I hope your local one has closed also.

TheDark_Knight

dh0661 wrote: »

I hope your local one has closed also.

why...hear no evil..see no evil, wont change a thing, we'll all just go to our local dealer now !
and plenty of stuff still online to buy, that's perfectly legal to buy and possess, the ban hasn't done anything only put 300 people out of work, tens of millions lost to the exchequer, and millions of Euros into the feuding gangs hands, and the new laws will be literally gang related death sentences by proxy for some people

ill still be going out sat night as will my large circle of friends, and we will be getting high as most young people in today's culture do, and if your so naive to think closed head-shops makes things go away, or protects anybody from anything, you'z ztupid ! :cool:
victory today for the underworld
dundons 1 govt 0

entropic

I worked out yesterday that I spent around €4,000 in head shops since I started using them (before you get high and mighty work out how much youve spent on booze) that will now go from a legitimate buisness to the gangs and dealers who apparently pose less of a threat than headshops.

Never thought I would see myself agreeing with Jim McDaid over anything but he is right, the media run this country. Whatever they want they can get.

golfball37

entropic wrote: »

I worked out yesterday that I spent around €4,000 in head shops since I started using them (before you get high and mighty work out how much youve spent on booze) that will now go from a legitimate buisness to the gangs and dealers who apparently pose less of a threat than headshops.

Never thought I would see myself agreeing with Jim McDaid over anything but he is right, the media run this country. Whatever they want they can get.

They didn't get rid of his ministerial pension or make him eat porridge for driving drunk down the wrong side of a motorway so I'd be careful quoting him as someone to back up a point.

But what you are saying is correct, we are in a recession and should seriously look at revenue sources. the money will now just end up in the hands of scum bags.

entropic

golfball37 wrote: »

They didn't get rid of his ministerial pension or make him eat porridge for driving drunk down the wrong side of a motorway so I'd be careful quoting him as someone to back up a point.

Yeah a bit of an exageration on my part there but they do have a lot more control than I wanted to believe.

drunken_munky52

When I opened this thread, I never expected that the head shops would be closed outright, and the future proofing the rebranding or redesign of chemical substances will make the drugs illegal for good. Good old granny Eire... BAN BAN BAN BAN everything without proper debate.

In regards the health implications, I am glad that that horrible sh1t inst been sold anymore and now teenagers will realize that its not the "organic" high they had expected.

In regards the political response to the issue, it should have been a lesser priority than other important matters, like jobs and white collar crime. Like I said at the start, these head shops were an easy target for politicians to bully to serve their own egos. I don't remember head shops been the reason Timmy Dooley was elected, he promised other things and broke those promises, so the likes of this was just something to entertain himself.

Brian Cowen in general sickens me, but even more so when he appears out of left-field yesterday to personally announce the measures. He is such a reclusive waster, and doesn't have the balls to to defend the real more important needs of the nation. Yesterday just shows the only thing he is interested in, is saving his own useless arse from voters.

Run_to_da_hills

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

When I opened this thread, I never expected that the head shops would be closed outright, and the future proofing the rebranding or redesign of chemical substances will make the drugs illegal for good. Good old granny Eire... BAN BAN BAN BAN everything without proper debate.

It looks like Tesco or Dunnes may become the latest head shops.

<SNIP>

drunken_munky52

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

It looks like Tesco or Dunnes may become the latest head shops.

<SNIP>

True. Teenagers will stick with with flaggans of cider and vodka down the railway line from now on.

Were all these worried parents crying out for Brian Cowen's nipple, when Irish teenagers were confirmed as the highest binge drinkers in Europe? No!

CptSternn

One head shop in Dublin brought in six million last year alone. They had over 900 customers every Saturday night, bringing in over 30,000 on each Saturday alone.

Does anyone think that the people who frequented there are just going to stop now that it is illegal?

Per the posters above, you are correct - the millions spent there (and the €70,000 a MONTH they brought in from taxes, not including VAT) is all going to go to drug dealers now in Dublin.

Expect more violence as the government just turned over a multi-million euro industry to the street dealers, and right now has no plans of putting more gards on the street. I guess i will take the large spike in gun deaths which is now in the pipes before people get an idea of what just happened.

I also hear on the radio yesterday that the main supplier of ALL head shops in Europe is based here in Ireland. They had an interview with yer one who was owner of the company which actually made the products. They employed dozens of workers and had a turn over of a few million last year alone - those jobs, their exports, and that revenue is now gone as well.

And of course lets not forget about the fact people can still legally buy the stuff online and have it shipped to their homes - there are dozens of products that are *not* banned or illegal that have the same effect and are available at over 100,000 head shops online.

TheDark_Knight

CptSternn wrote: »

One head shop in Dublin brought in six million last year alone.

there ya go, fat harney was saying (before the pressure roll-back) the govt couldn't afford the cervical cancer vaccine for young girls, this shop alone could of covered 60% of the cost in 12 months alone, it beggars belief

CptSternn

I posted this in the other thread, so some of this may be a repost on anyone following the main thread but here goes -

With NAMA, bank bail outs, public secotr cuts, etc. - the government wants to deflect attention. They are getting people to organise against the headshops because they know if they are out protesting one thing, they won't be out protesting against them.

I mean, many of these shops have been there for decades? Why such a push now? It's a red herring. Its to get people to focus their anger on something other than them.

It's sad so many eejits have fallen for this.

At the end of the day if/when they do close the shop in town, our unemployment rate as reported by the local paper will still be 31% (even higher now there will be a half dozen more not working at the headshops but on the dole).

They still will be cutting the number of Gards, and the money being taken in from the headshop in taxes/VAT will now be going to street dealers.

Our county, our country, will be worse off.

But thats not important to these career politicians who are just trying to hang on to their paychecks.

Stuxnet

so is the our local HS shutdown can anyone confirm ?

Run_to_da_hills

BOBBY wrote: »

so is the our local HS shutdown can anyone confirm ?

The local HS in Dunlaoghaire is selling anything that has not been banned by that blimp, Im sure town is the same.

MikeyGorse

BOBBY wrote: »

so is the our local HS shutdown can anyone confirm ?

Had a closed sign up yesterday when i passed!

CptSternn

I posted this in the main headshop thread, but thought it was worth reposting here as well.

I did a bit of Goggling. Check this out –

They banned 160+ chemicals. On top of this they included wording to ban all derivatives. They say you can get life in prison if you are caught selling any of those chemicals for human consumption, or their derivatives.

Did you know the average cigarette contains over 4000 chemicals. Of those chemicals, many were just banned. All shop owners are now in violation of the law if they sell cigarettes, and cigarettes are now illegal under Irish law.

Here is a short list of 599 more popular chemicals in cigarettes, many of which are direct derivatives of the banned chemicals:

http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/nicotineinhaler/a/cigingredients.htm

Google:

‘4-hydroxybutanoic acid lactone cigarette’

It is found in all cigarettes, listed as a ‘flavouring agent’.

Now Google:

‘4-hydroxybutanoic acid lactone’

You will see it is another name for GBL, one substance that was banned outright in all quantities for human consumption by name in the new law. This isn’t a derivative, this is straight GBL, by one of its proper full names.

Tis why scientists and chemists should be put in charge of legislation like this instead of politicians who never took a chemistry class in college.

I mean, most of the chemical names are either short names or chemistry slang. Chemicals can have literally a dozen names, not to mention their derivatives do as well.

That is just one of a list of ingredients found in cigarettes which has now been banned by the government. I wonder how long until they figure out that cigarettes are included in the new law.