Head shop products ‘will change rapidly’

HEAD shop products will continue to change at an “unprecedented speed” in order to circumvent legal controls, the EU’s drugs agency has said.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said it identified a record number of new mind-altering drugs last year. The body said 24 new psychoactive substances (all synthetic or manmade) were documented under the EU early-warning system (EWS) in 2009, compared to 13 in 2008.

“The EWS actively monitors unregulated psychoactive products — the so-called ‘legal highs’ — sold via internet or specialised (smart, head) shops, advertised with aggressive and sophisticated marketing strategies, and in some cases intentionally mislabelled with purported ingredients differing from the actual composition,” said the EMCCDA, in a report with Europol, the EU police agency.