Minister expects head shops to fight laws

THE Government’s Drugs Minister said the head shop industry had the “best legal representation that money can buy” and will certainly challenge planned laws to put them out of business.

Speaking at an Oireachtas committee, Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, Pat Carey said he would seriously consider a recommendation by the committee that head shops be legally required to obtain a pre-sale licence for all their products.

Mr Carey, who is responsible for the national drugs strategy, said he would also consider another proposal raised at the committee requiring head shops to obtain product liability insurance in order to get a licence to trade.

Making the suggestion, Fianna Fáil deputy Michael Kennedy, who has worked in the insurance industry, said no insurance company would provide cover for head shop products, thereby disabling head shop owners from getting a licence.

Mr Carey told the Oireachtas Committee on Community Affairs the Government was seeking to legislate head shops “out of existence”. He said in addition to the impending ban on a range of head shop products, due to come into force in mid-July, he said the Department of Justice was drafting legislation making it a “criminal offence generally to supply unregulated psychotropic substances for use by humans”.

But he warned the head shop industry was “highly organised” and there was “no doubt whatever” the planned laws will be challenged by the industry.

“They have some of the best legal representation that money can buy to ensure they won’t be put out of business,” he said. Mr Carey said when he was junior minister with responsibility for drugs in 2008, there were around 26 head shops and that now there were in the region of 100.

Committee chairman, Fianna Fáil deputy Tom Kitt, asked Mr Carey to consider a committee recommendation that head shops be legally required to get a licence for any product before they put it on sale.

The Dublin south TD said applicants would have to provide full information on the product’s ingredients, source, manufacturer and purpose.

He also suggested as an interim measure that Mr Carey sit down with head shop owners. Mr Carey said while his preference was to ban the shops, he would do anything that might bring the problem under control.

Mr Kennedy said local gardaí in his Dublin north constituency told him children as young as 12 were observed buying products from head shops.

Fine Gael deputy Michael Ring said he received mildly threatening emails from people claiming to be head shop owners after he recently described them as gangsters under Dáil privilege.

The Mayo TD also said a constituent contacted him after her son, aged in his 20s, “nearly died” in hospital after taking head shop products and other drugs.