Suspicious devices found outside two headshops

Sheeps

420

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0310/athlone.html

Two viable explosive devices have been made safe outside separate head shops in Athlone, Co Westmeath.

The alerts were in the Golden Island area of the town.

A number of buildings were evacuated during the alert.

Traffic restrictions have since been lifted.

Truley

msg11 wrote: »

I am sick of it, people giving out yards about these shops, oh no they opened one in your area, so ? You don't seem to care if a Spar opens up selling Drink and Smokes, there all drugs, addictive and can kill. Also controlled, again different sets of rules for different people. Bloody joke.

Very true. I wonder why people haven't started attacking pharmacies. Seeing as perscription drugs have killed more people annually than anything a head shop has sold.

twinQuins

ScumLord wrote: »

That's very obviously untrue in so many ways.

I'd love to know who's doing this, surely the moral majority can't justify protecting children by planting bombs?

I think the case of self-appointed moral guardians bombing abortion clinics in the US, sadly, proves otherwise. You're dealing with people so far removed from reality that to them, any means of shutting these places down is acceptable.

Kurtosis

msg11 wrote: »

Whats the ****ing problem with these shops?

If you don't like them or need anything in them, keep the **** out of the shop. Don't bitch about something you don't know about.

I don't use head shops or drugs except smoke cigs. Christ on a bike, what is it with Irish people and getting there noses in everywhere?

Tryna get these places closed down that are legal, pay taxes and hire people for work.

While drug dealers do the opposite. And the goverment/majority of people want to hand this trade back to them? Are they ****ing off the bat?

Few friends of mine, that were into the coke stopped. And tried the legal 'snow blow', pay legally for it, pay taxes and it's controlled.

If that gose there back to the drug dealer. Has everyone just lost there mind?

The bombs should be outside these scummers that sell the illegal stuff.

I am sick of it, people giving out yards about these shops, oh no they opened one in your area, so ? You don't seem to care if a Spar opens up selling Drink and Smokes, there all drugs, addictive and can kill. Also controlled, again different sets of rules for different people. Bloody joke.

And again, if you don't like the shops, fair play, stop pissing me off with this bloody crap. Just keep away from them.

(my emphasis added)

How is snow-blow controlled?

Precious flower

MaybeLogic wrote: »

As far as I understood it's the RIRA wots doing it, including shooting the headshop owner in Derry and a drugdealer in Cork.

The gardaí are not sure if it's them but they haven't ruled them out as suspects as far as I know, mainly because they pride themselves on 'protecting' communties. :rolleyes: Their doing a fine job if it's them they solution seems to be just burn everything down!:mad:

drunkmonkey

penguin88 wrote: »

How is snow-blow controlled?

Your protected under your consumer rights, you don't get that with drug dealers.
If it's not fit for purpose you can take it back, if it kills someone i'm sure the producer or supplier are "legally" liable.

Coriolanus

Precious flower wrote: »

The gardaí are not sure if it's them but they haven't ruled them out as suspects as far as I know, mainly because they pride themselves on 'protecting' communties. :rolleyes: Their doing a fine job if it's them they solution seems to be just burn everything down!:mad:

Of course, far much safer for the kids to be going to the RIRA for their drugs rather than the head shops.

They're protecting their profit margins and that's about all.

Kurtosis

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Your protected under your consumer rights, you don't get that with drug dealers.
If it's not fit for purpose you can take it back, if it kills someone i'm sure the producer or supplier are "legally" liable.

Will give you the consumer rights point. The other one, hmmm...not so sure. The same way if someone died from consuming some "Mom's Old Fashioned Fertiliser", I'd have thought as long as the product was suitably labelled with warning of not for human consumption, Homebase and Mom's Old Fashioned Fertiliser Co. wouldn't be liable. Then again, these headshop products are "not for human consumption ", so that argument could be made if there was a court case.

I still think however the poster might have meant "controlled" in a different sense.

c0rk3r

msg11 wrote: »

If that gose there back to the drug dealer. Has everyone just lost there mind?

Don't your mates have a choice to make? Give these psychos money or not. When does personal responsibility go out the window ? Personally, i dont mind drugs its just the deluded users that annoy me.

msg11

penguin88 wrote: »

(my emphasis added)

How is snow-blow controlled?

Never taking the stuff, but I can imagine to be sold legally it would have to meet some sort of quaility requirment to be sold, and it can't be like the other stuff mixed to the nines with all sorts.

The problem here is not the drug on its own, it's the user. Not knowing when too give it a rest and let your body take a break. Which in turn leads to someone on the ground in a life or death situation.

Another problem I have is the goverment. They are not educating people on drugs, the effects, the after effects and how these effects can change;

Your attitude
Your mindset
Your health
Your life

I was watching a programme on BBC on Cannabis. It killed a young lad, not because of the Cannabis, but because he was just smoking too much of the stuff. Which in turn lead to him having a mental health issue and hanging himself.

Proper course from starting to highlighting these dangers might have turned him away from the stuff, or highlight the risk of smoking to much of the stuff has.

Which is the same for any drug.

The goverment get a bit of regulation in the area, and they want to throw it away ? As for the people planting bombs outside these shops, setting them on fire etc.. What is the propose? You are going to kill an innocent person, like myself, who has no interest in the shops, why you want them closed down. The products these shops are selling is not going to kill someone, its the people protesting against them for what ever reason that will.

It really is a ticking clock before someone gets hurt/kill with this carry on.

One shop burned to the ground.
Bombs planted outside two.

Another one will be next.. Can the Garda/Goverment step in before a life is lost. By that I don't mean shut the shops down.

Kurtosis

msg11 wrote: »

Never taking the stuff, but I can imagine to be sold legally it would have to meet some sort of quaility requirment to be sold, and it can't be like the other stuff mixed to the nines with all sorts.

No, this is not the case.

AKA pat sheen

Another headshop has been torched http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0311/sligo.html

How many is that, 5 shops? I wouldn't be surprised if they start classifying these products as medicines like the Dutch have.

Donny5

penguin88 wrote: »

No, this is not the case.

Yeah, this is fact. The stuff is being sold as bath salts and plant food, and, as such, not for human consumption. They can put almost anything they want in there, and the only downside to them is that they won't get repeat business if they become known for it.

drunkmonkey

Donny5 wrote: »

Yeah, this is fact. The stuff is being sold as bath salts and plant food, and, as such, not for human consumption. They can put almost anything they want in there, and the only downside to them is that they won't get repeat business if they become known for it.

Would it not make more sense for the shops to be forced into labelling it for human consumption when it clearly is and also have printed guidelines for use and what to do when complications arise from using the products. If the substance hasn't passed any tests then it can't be sold.

Donny5

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Would it not make more sense for the shops to be forced into labelling it for human consumption when it clearly is and also have printed guidelines for use and what to do when complications arise from using the products. If the substance hasn't passed any tests then it can't be sold.

Yeah, certainly, it would. However, nothing they sell would pass any European Medicines Agency tests, nor domestic testing by the Irish Medicines Board. If nothing else, the tests required to certify a drug for human use would be prohibitively expensive for the manufactures and retailers of what's sold in head shops. On top of that, regulation would bring more costs related to quality assurance, licensing, branding and, most importantly, liability.

If a head shop now sells a drug that is found to cause medical difficulties in the future, it's relatively safe from liability, because:

• It sold it as a bath salt or some other product for external use only only, and so the problems were caused by the misuse of the product, not the product itself.
  
• Head shops have no licence to lose, no regulator to fear, no barrier to entry or exit. If a headshop is sued and is a Limited Liability Company, the owners can declare bankruptcy and walk away. They can then set up a new company and open another head shop.

If head shops become licensed (and insured and inspected and everything else that goes with being regulated), suddenly a barrier to entry has appeared. Opening a head shop becomes expensive and difficult, which decreases the attractiveness of walking away from a current shop facing legal difficulties. This alone would end the industry immediately, in my opinion.

Were head shops to be regulated, it's likely that staff there would required to have some training or qualification, which would increase costs further. (I've heard, as a counter argument to this, that if this were true, that off-licences and anyone selling smokes would also be forced to have training before distributing their legal drugs. It's simply not the case, though. Legal head shops would almost certainly need qualified staff (what the qualification would be, I don't know) if for no other reason than to satisfy the old biddies on Joe Duffy.)

They'd also need insurance, and lots of it.

Due to these cost increases, the price would also have to be raised to remain profitable. The higher the price of legal highs relative to their illicit counterparts would reduce demand as head shops lose their competitive edge.

TL;DR: Yes, you're right, it would be safer, but it'll never happen.


Full Disclosure: I'm talking through my arse and am almost completely wrong about all of the above.

AKA pat sheen

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Would it not make more sense for the shops to be forced into labelling it for human consumption when it clearly is and also have printed guidelines for use and what to do when complications arise from using the products. If the substance hasn't passed any tests then it can't be sold.

If the govt. designate these products as unlicenced medicines then all sales would be illegal without approval from IMB and it's almost certain there wouldn't be approval for them. You can't market a licensed medicine as "not for human consumption" to get around the law so it's strange than you can market a substance "which may be administered with a view to...modifying physiological functions by exerting a pharmacological, immunological or metabolic action in humans or animals" just because it doesn't have a license. The Dutch obviously don't agree.

Teddy Chips

I've never heard junkies referred to as devices.

Kurtosis

AKA pat sheen wrote: »

If the govt. designate these products as unlicenced medicines then all sales would be illegal without approval from IMB and it's almost certain there wouldn't be approval for them. You can't market a licensed medicine as "not for human consumption" to get around the law so it's strange than you can market a substance "which may be administered with a view to...modifying physiological functions by exerting a pharmacological, immunological or metabolic action in humans or animals" just because it doesn't have a license. The Dutch obviously don't agree.

I don't really follow you. For a medicine, being unlicensed does not make it illegal to sell it. It does mean extra conditions on how it is supplied, but it is not against the law. But despite not having a licence, it still has to be produced by an authorised manufacturer, distributed by an authorised wholesaler and supplied through a pharmacy on foot of a prescription...I think it is more this part that would be the barrier for headshop products.

goose2005

penguin88 wrote: »

(my emphasis added)

How is snow-blow controlled?

Is is not just called "Snow"?

Anyway, no-one controls the sale of glue, even though there are probably just as many glue-sniffers as snow-snorters.

Kurtosis

goose2005 wrote: »

Is is not just called "Snow"?

Sorry, was just using the same name as the user I was quoting. Not familiar with the products but think snow and snow blow are the names of two products, probably the same thing in them.

Anyway, no-one controls the sale of glue, even though there are probably just as many glue-sniffers as snow-snorters.

Yes, but no one is claiming glue is controlled. And anyway, glue has a purpose other than a substance to be sniffed. Snow doesn't have another purpose (oh sorry, forgot about as bath salts )

Donny5

penguin88 wrote: »

I don't really follow you. For a medicine, being unlicensed does not make it illegal to sell it. It does mean extra conditions on how it is supplied, but it is not against the law. But despite not having a licence, it still has to be produced by an authorised manufacturer, distributed by an authorised wholesaler and supplied through a pharmacy on foot of a prescription...I think it is more this part that would be the barrier for headshop products.

As I understand it, all medicines must be authorised by the Irish Medicines Board, which is analogous to being licenced. Sale and supply of medicines not authorised is, I believe, a crime.

Co45

Teddy Chips wrote: »

I've never heard junkies referred to as devices.

Out of interest do you consider people that go into off licences junkies or are only people who use other drugs junkies :pac:

Kurtosis

Donny5 wrote: »

As I understand it, all medicines must be authorised by the Irish Medicines Board, which is analogous to being licenced. Sale and supply of medicines not authorised is, I believe, a crime.

You're spot on, the IMB licenses/authorises medicines on the Irish market. However, those that are unlicensed/do not hold a marketing authorisation can be supplied legally, it's just more complicated. It does happen that for uncommon conditions that it may not be profitable for the manufacturer to get it licensed in Ireland due to the population size. These can still be prescribed and dispensed however, but full responsibility has to be taken by the doctor and pharmacist involved.

Donny5

penguin88 wrote: »

You're spot on, the IMB licenses/authorises medicines on the Irish market. However, those that are unlicensed/do not hold a marketing authorisation can be supplied legally, it's just more complicated. It does happen that for uncommon conditions that it may not be profitable for the manufacturer to get it licensed in Ireland due to the population size. These can still be prescribed and dispensed however, but full responsibility has to be taken by the doctor and pharmacist involved.

Ah, fair enough. I didn't know this. It seems unlikely that future, hypothetical legal head shops would risk selling their products as unlicensed medicines if it required them to take responsibility for any adverse effects they may have.

AKA pat sheen

penguin88 wrote: »

I don't really follow you. For a medicine, being unlicensed does not make it illegal to sell it. It does mean extra conditions on how it is supplied, but it is not against the law.

Fair enough, replace "all sales would be illegal" above with "general sales including over the counter/through the hatch sales by headshops would be illegal."

Kurtosis

AKA pat sheen wrote: »

Fair enough, replace "all sales would be illegal" above with "general sales including over the counter/through the hatch sales by headshops would be illegal."

I wasn't saying you were wrong, I just didn't follow your reasoning, as in, I didn't get how they would be illegal.

Kurtosis

Donny5 wrote: »

Ah, fair enough. I didn't know this. It seems unlikely that future, hypothetical legal head shops would risk selling their products as unlicensed medicines if it required them to take responsibility for any adverse effects they may have.

Exactly, but even if they did, they run into other problems. The manufacturers and wholesalers would have to be licensed. Depending on the classification of the products, the headshop would need to employ a pharmacist and be registered as a retail pharmacy business and maybe even prescribed by a doctor...not gonna happen.

What they could have done was regulate them through the IMB in a sort of parallel system to medicines (much like they're going to be doing with cosmetics) but alas it doesn't look like that will happen now. The government have gone with the "easy" option.