‘Only criminals will benefit’ from ban on head shop drugs

BANNING legal drugs on sale in alternative lifestyle shops will only serve criminal drug dealers and push the market underground, warned the director of Irish Head Shop Enterprises.

Shane O’Connor said last year’s ban on legal high BZP, which mimics the effects of ecstasy, gave drug gangs a new bestseller, and outlawing new legal highs would do the same thing: “95% of what’s being sold as ecstasy in Ireland now is actually BZP, though not necessarily the pure unadulterated substance you were able to get in the head shops prior to the ban.

“Nowadays, BZP is like any other illegal drug in that it’s cut with God knows what to give the various people in the supply chain a bigger profit,” he said in an interview published in today’s Hot Press .