Column One

BLARNEY STONED ON BATH SALTS

New-Wave Head Shops, Fast Becoming a Fixture in Ireland, Sell Cheap
and Legal Highs Thinly Disguised As Other Products

Like plenty of hale and hearty young Irishmen, Chris knows just how
to unwind after a tough day at the office: He reaches for his bath salts.

He gets the water ready -- but in a glass, not the tub. Then, despite
a warning on the box that it's "not for human consumption," he pops a
capsule in his mouth and downs it with a swig.

For the next few hours, he's happy and hopped up, full of energy for
an evening of clubbing, without a hangover lying in wait.

"I find it much less debilitating" than alcohol, confides the
29-year-old bookkeeper, who can pop two or three capsules a night. He
asked that his full name not be used.

Such "bath salts" are popular these days throughout Ireland, not for
a relaxing soak at home but because many contain a party drug known
as mephedrone. They're part of the literally dizzying array of
products being sold in stores offering customers cheap and legal
highs, stuff marketed as bath salts or incense but designed to be
smoked, snorted or swallowed.

The new-wave head shops are fast becoming a fixture in this island
nation, multiplying with astonishing speed from just a few several
years ago to as many as 100 today. Much of the growth has occurred in
the last 12 months, even as the rest of the Irish economy underwent a
painful contraction.

Authorities are increasingly concerned about the potential effect of
head shops and their products on crime and the nation's health.
Parents, too, are worried about their children's exposure to
substances that mimic the effects of outlawed drugs such as cocaine
and marijuana.

Officials are groping for ways to limit, regulate or ban head shops,
which operate with so little restriction that many stay open till 4
a.m., supplying eager clubbers through metal hatches in their doors,
like shady pharmaceutical take-aways. By contrast, the sale of
alcohol is far more regulated.

That the head shops aren't subject to heavier control is due in large
part to clever packaging. By peddling products advertised, however
misleadingly, for other uses, the stores avoid strict food and drug
safety regulations and receive virtually the same treatment as
retailers that sell clothes, books, home furnishings or other
"harmless" consumer goods.

The charade fools no one, of course, least of all the manufacturers,
who indulge in some sly descriptions on their labels. The makers of
Snow "bath salts," for instance, inform buyers that adding their
"fine white powder" to the bath will make them chatty and peppy, but
warn against the presence of heavy machinery in the bathroom.

"They're labeled as 'not for human consumption,' but when you go into
the shop, you're told how to consume it, how to inject it," lawmaker
Joe Costello said. "We have a range of substances that are sold that
really are not regulated, that nobody knows precisely what's in them,
nobody knows the quantities that are being sold or taken."

Some insalubrious consequences are already beginning to emerge.

Hospitals have reported an increase in the number of emergency room
patients suffering from hallucinations, panic attacks and delirium
brought on by mind-altering products such as Ivory Wave, which is
sold as bath salts.

Here in the Irish capital, residents and businesses were alarmed last
month by fires believed to be arson at two head shops, possibly set
by drug dealers angry about the competition.

Even so, Costello is leery of banning the shops, which many fear
would drive up the illegal drug trade and open the door wider to
gangs and organized crime.

The government decided this month to outlaw a range of substances
found in head shops, including mephedrone, which mimics the effect of
ecstasy; the ban will take effect in June. But targeting specific
substances can also be an exercise in frustration, triggering an
endless cat-and-mouse game in which manufacturers keep tweaking their
products to stay one step ahead of the law.

Costello has settled on a softer approach: He's pushing a bill in the
Dail, the lower house of parliament, that would subject head shops to
more planning controls, which could at least help limit where they
can open -- for example, not too close to schools.

Shane O'Connor, director of a chain of head shops, sees some sense in
that. In fact, O'Connor says he's open to stricter guidelines on
window displays and a ban on sales to anyone younger than 18.

It's the idea of closing down the shops that he finds absurd.

"Prohibition doesn't remove demand," he said. "The only way to remove
demand for illegal drugs is to offer safer legal alternatives."

In many ways, today's head shop craze is merely an extension of a
wave of drug use that has swept Ireland since the 1970s.

Heroin and other hard drugs were popular in the beginning. Then
cocaine and crack started making inroads, especially during Ireland's
economic boom of the last 20 years, which transformed the Emerald
Isle into the Celtic Tiger.

Now recreational users have an expanded menu of drugs to choose from,
at much lower, recession-friendly prices.

"It's a lot easier now," said Thomas, 19, a slightly scruffy college
student who declined to give his last name. "It's all legal at the moment."

He had just bought a packet of Ice Gold, an "aromatherapy resin
extract" by a company engaged in "botanical research." Two grams cost
about $35. Thomas buys a packet a week to take home and smoke; he no
longer has to badger friends for pot. (Online discussions say Ice
Gold contains resin from cannabis, but shop workers insist that it
"has no cannabinoids.")

Nothing on the box, though, says exactly what's in Ice Gold or how to
use it safely. There's only an effusive, but not particularly
helpful, description of how such plant extracts "have for millennia
been used in shamanic rituals."

That lack of information upsets Christopher Luke, a vocal critic of
head shops in the southern city of Cork, where a store called the
Funky Skunk sits on one of the main shopping drags.

An emergency room doctor, Luke has seen some of the ugly outcomes of
unregulated drug use.

"The consequences of head shop products are sometimes spectacular in
terms of psychosis, delirium and what they need in terms of
treatment," he said.

His hospital admits a head shop case every week to 10 days, adding to
the strain on Ireland's overburdened healthcare system, Luke said.

"Head shop drugs are in every village and town of this island," he
said. "Even if 1% of consumers come to harm, it could be very, very difficult."

Like others, Luke counsels against rushing through inadequate or
ill-thought-out legislation to deal with the situation.

But Costello, the lawmaker, said some stopgap measure needs to be
taken now, especially if Ireland wants to avoid turning into a
destination for the legally blissed-out.

"We leave that type of tourism," he said, "to Amsterdam."