Head Shop Legislation needs to go further
Posted on June 21, 2010 at 01:25 PM
Once again today the Minister for Justice has announced his proposals for tackling “legal highs” and putting Head Shops out of business.
What the Minister published today was not the actual legislation but the “Heads of Legislation” or a general scheme of proposals.
It could still take months for the draughtsmen in the Department of Justice to finesse the proposals and have the legislation ready for publication.
This is very disappointing as it took Mary Harney, Minister for Health, over 12 months to produce a Statutory Instrument which is a simple amendment of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations to add certain drugs to the list of banned substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1997.
In the meantime the Head Shops phenomenon spread like wildfire all over the country and many young people were hooked on the “legal highs” and many ended up in hospital.
Since the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Regulations (2010) was enacted by the Minister for Health on the 12th May 2010 a new psychoactive substance not covered by the Regulations and known as “Whack” has appeared and has begun to spread quickly.
Clearly, there is a need for urgent legislation to put a stop to new products coming on the market and replacing the ones that have been banned.
The Minister for Justice’s proposals to outlaw all substances on the market which have psychoactive properties is a novel approach and it could be effective in preventing a proliferation of new and dangerous substances being advertised on the internet or sold in Head Shops.
However, unless there is some miracle the Heads of a Bill will not be transposed into the actual provisions of a Bill, published and enacted in Dáil and Seanad Éireann by the second week in July when the Dáil is due to rise.
It appears that the Minister for Justice is more concerned with continuously telling the public what he proposes to do than actually doing it.
In the meantime the Minister for the Environment might make a useful contribution to combating the Head Shop phenomenon by accepting the Labour Party’s, Planning and Development Bill 2010, which would have the effect of putting most of the existing Head Shops out of action and in ensuring that new Head Shops would not be able to open.
