CITY JOINS WITH POLICE TO DECLARE WAR ON PARTY DRUG

Tel Aviv has decided to join police in fighting against the party
drug Hagigat and its substitutes, reports the Hebrew weekly Yediot
Tel Aviv. The city has announced that local kiosks that continue to
sell the substance may lose their business licenses, and issued
warnings to three kiosks last week on the matter.

Hagigat and other so-called party drugs have long been a thorn in
the side of police and medical authorities, who say their unlisted
and uncontrolled mix of chemicals is often illegal and can be
dangerous. But attempts to curtail sales have proved difficult.
The report said that until now the authorities have operated under
drug laws, and if the chemicals in the drugs have not previously
been declared illegal, police have had no right of redress. But even
when the substances do contain illegal drugs, by the time
the authorities analyze them and announce their findings, the
manufacturers have already changed the name and the composition and
have distributed a new substance to kiosks around the city.

Now the municipality has decided to use food sale laws to put an end
to the party drug sales. The law requires that all food and drink
products must carry a label stating their ingredients and their
manufacturers, and because the party drugs come in capsules without
this information, they are in breach of the law. In the initial
stages, the city has been forgiving - it revoked the business
licenses of three kiosk owners last week, but reinstated them when
the owners promised not to sell unlabelled food products again.

"We have reached the conclusion that all the tablets that are made
by anonymous manufacturers are poisoning our youth," a municipal
spokesman said. "Revoking a business license seems to be a much more
convincing act than all the criminal processes, and is much quicker too."

The report said that several kiosk owners said they would stop
selling the party drugs, but many others had not heard of the city's
new policy.