Gardaí seize 300,000 BZP tablets in 2009

GARDAÍ seized a total of 300,000 BZP tablets in 2009, at a time when the overall illegal drug market contracted sharply.

BZP tablets, once sold as a legal high in so-called headshops, were made illegal last April.

The size of the BZP seizures since then indicates the extent to which drug trafficking gangs have moved in to fill the supply of the drug. Garda sources and sources in the drugs trade suggest BZP tablets are largely taking over the traditional ecstasy market.

Official Garda figures, released to the Dáil by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, tend to support this, with fewer than 19,000 ecstasy tablets seized in 2009, compared with 119,000 in 2008 and 285,000 in 2007.

“BZP are now either being sold as ecstasy or suppliers are replacing ecstasy with it,” said one source in the drugs trade.

This is following a similar trend elsewhere in Europe, including Britain, Holland and Denmark. BZP is a synthetic stimulant with similar effects to ecstasy. It became very popular in many European countries in recent years, particularly as it could be bought legally.

In March 2008, the EU ruled that member states had to introduce measures controlling BZP following a risk-assessment by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

The EU Council of Ministers said the control measures should be proportionate to the risk, which it said was “relatively low”, and that criminal penalties should be in line with national laws. In its risk assessment, the EMCDDA said there was a need to control BZP “due to its stimulant properties, risk to health and the lack of medical benefits”.

It said health risks were similar to amphetamines and included vomiting, stomach pains, anxiety, mood swings and confusion. It said BZP had been found in postmortems, but added: “The extent to which BZP was implicated in the deaths is not known: in all cases, other drugs or other circumstances were involved.”

The BZP hauls last year came in two main seizures: one in July and one in November. In the first, gardaí recovered around 200,000 tablets during a house search in Finglas, north Dublin. In November, the Organised Crime Unit seized around 150,000 tablets in a search of a flat in Rathmines, south Dublin.

Given the total BZP seizure last year was 309,236, these were either overestimates or some of the tablets turned out to be some other drug. There were also 2,360 BZP capsules and over 4kgs of BZP powder seized in 2009.

Other drugs, including mephedrone, have replaced BZP in many headshops.

Last week, Health Minister Mary Harney said she intended to ban substances replacing BZP, including mephedrone, which is already banned in some Nordic countries and Britain is considering whether to ban it.