DUTCH GET TO GRIPS WITH DRUG SHOPS

KOKOPELLI is on the Warmoesstraat in the middle of the red light
district, two minutes from the railway station and less than 50 metres
from the police station. It is bright and airy with stripped pine
floors. Tall rear windows overlook a stately 17th century canal.
Anywhere else it might be a designer clothes shop; this being
Amsterdam, it is a designer drugs shop.

A year or so ago there were half a dozen of these "smart shops" but
now there are more than 150. They pose a problem for the Dutch
government, which has Europe's most tolerant and pragmatic drugs policy.

How exactly do you legislate against magic mushrooms and psycho-active
cacti -- not to mention those little white tablets that are almost,
but not quite, Ecstasy?

"Everything we sell here is completely legal," insisted Jeroen Burger,
a spokesman for Conscious Dreams, the small but fast-growing company
that launched the smart shop craze and recently opened Kokopelli. "OK,
the active ingredient in magic mushrooms is on the list of banned
drugs. But we don't sell the active ingredient. We sell the natural
product."

Natural it may be, but the effect can be as powerful as many outlawed
hard drugs. Take, for example, Psilocybe tampanensis, the Magic
Truffle, disarmingly described as triggering a "remarkably clear trip,
but not too disorienting". Or Panaeolus cyanascens, which is
"metabolised very quickly, making the trip come on fast and strong".
Both cost about $50 for five. In Mr Burger's words, they amount to
"legal hard drugs".

Moving up the scale of natural hallucinogens, Kokopelli also sells an
innocent-looking plant called Salvia divinorum. It carries a kick like
a mule: anyone choosing to smoke its leaves is advised to do so with
friends so they can catch the pipe.

The Netherlands already has its 1,200 famous coffee-shops, where the
sale of small quantities of marijuana for personal use is tolerated,
in the belief that it is better to keep such things out in the open,
where they can be supervised, than drive them underground. In a recent
long report, the Dutch health ministry tried to get to grips with the
smart-shop phenomenon. It wanted to know whether they were a
potentially lethal new development, or merely a kind of alternative
chemist, offering "safe" alternatives to banned drugs.

Its conclusion, firmly in the Dutch tradition of respect for
individual liberty, was that they were "not an unacceptable danger to
society". For the time being they will be tolerated, and closely watched.

They need watching closely. Because smart shops are also engaged in a
continual cat-and-mouse game with the authorities over synthetic drugs.

A couple of years ago GHB was banned outright when six Rotterdam
teenagers fell into a near-coma after combining it with alcohol.
Within weeks, a laboratory had produced an alternative.

Beneath Kokopelli's glass-topped counter lie some white pills --
2C.T.2 -- described in its accompanying literature as a "psychedelic
amphetamine". It is sold in sets of two 8mg tablets, but beginners are
strongly advised to take just one, with a large amount of water. "Do
not take 2C.T.2 alone unless you are an experienced user," the handout
warns. "Do not take it if you are pregnant, diabetic, have high or low
blood pressure, a heart disease, have ever had hepatitis A or B, or
have drunk alcohol."

To Mr Burger this is responsible Dutch drug dealing at its best. "You

see, the danger hardly ever lies in the product itself, but in the
person using it," he said.

"We test every product personally, and give detailed information to
each buyer. People will buy it anyway, and it's far better they do it
from us than from some street-corner dealer." That is also, in
essence, the policy of the health ministry. But do be careful to
follow the instructions.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady