BAN WILL PUT NEW DRUGS ON BLACK MARKET WARNS EXPERT

A DRUG abuse expert has warned that the banning of substances used to
obtain 'legal highs' will push the materials into the black market
instead.

His comments follow the announcement that a number of substances used
to obtain a 'legal high' will be banned by the summer. The Cabinet
approved proposals from Drugs Minister John Curran and Minister for
Health Mary Harney to ban some of the most popular substances
available in head shops.

But Dr Des Corrigan of the National Advisory Committee on Drugs said
that he is personally against a regulated headshop system, adding it
is "inevitable" that the drugs will end up being sold in an
unregulated market.

"I think some of these products are so dangerous from what we know
from the user reports that there's no way the regulatory authority
would allow them on the market. So I think they're going to end up on
the black market one way or the other, even if we had a regulated
system," he explained.

"The same way as unfortunately when you bring them in under the Misuse
of Drugs Act, somebody will put them on to the black market, that's
inevitable. I think they're going to end up there anyway."

Dr Corrigan said that he agreed with the Government decision to ban
the controversial substances as criminalising the materials sends out
a "clear message" that these drugs are unsafe.

"I don't think it's a mistake, I think it's sending out a clear
message to young people that these materials are not safe, because a
lot of them think that these materials have been legalised with the
use of this phrase, 'legal highs', where nobody has actually certified
these chemicals as being safe or of good quality.

"The Government has sent out, quite rightly, a clear message that
these chemicals are not safe," Dr Corrigan said.

The substances which will be removed from the head shops shelves
include synthetic cannabinoids, better known as 'Spice' products, BZP
derivatives, mephedrone -- the fourth most popular club drug -- which
is better known as 'Snow' or 'Blow', methlyone and related cathinones.

Ketamine, which is also used as a horse tranquiliser, will be banned
too, as will GBL and 1,4BD, better known as liquid ecstasy.

Tapentadol and "certain narcotic and psychotropic substances" will
also be illegal.

Dr Corrigan added that some of the substances currently being sold in
head shops and lined up for the ban are more dangerous than already
illegal drugs.

"I think the ones that present the most immediate threat to public
health would be the cathinones and some of the synthetic cannabinoids
because some of the synthetic cannabinoids in laboratory tests are
about 100 times more powerful than the main chemical in cannabis --
THC," he said.