Head Shops Under Fire

Sleepy wrote:

manonthemoon, congratulations, that is one of the most ignorant posts I've ever seen on boards.ie, you must be very proud.

.

Yes I am.

Thank you



..

beans wrote:

All of the botanicals they sell in those shops are unscheduled substances. These headshops bring such botanicals to the attention of lawmakers in the form of 'bad trip' stories and incidents such as that poor chap who killed himself that time high on mushrooms and wine.

"These substances are fundamentally evil, so say my outraged constituants, so I'm going to see them scheduled" etc

As it stands, you can obtain all these botanicals and many more legally from wholesale stores online, at a fraction of the cost. Headshops only serve to make the owners rich (1000% markups anyone?) and attract negative attention to the substances therein. I would'nt loose any sleep if they went away.

I see your point regarding head shops beans, but I don't agree completely. Of course headshops mark up the prices of their stock, the same as Dixons mark up the price of the DVD players they sell when they order them from sony or whoever, thats normal business practice and is how retailers earn profits. If Dixons were one of only a handfull of businesses in Ireland to sell DVD players you can be garaunteed they'd have a much higher mark up aswell.

I think headshops do serve a purpose, I for one find it convenient to be able to just pop into town to buy whatever I want in one, rather than having to order from the internet in advance and wait for delivery. Also it means you have the option of going back to the shop and complaining if you are sold a faulty or damaged product, which is a lot more difficult to do via the net. Now obviously it depends on the shop but the one I frequent were as professional and understanding as any mainstream shop the couple of times I had issue with the condition of the products I purchased and offered me the choice of a replacement or my money back.

As for them bringing negative attention on the products they stock, well I do agree there, but that is not wholely the fault of the shops themselves, it has a lot to do with the illinformed people that have very little else to do and go looking for a cause to fight, and through prejadiced(sc) eyes see these shops as little more than evil pied pipers trying to destroy society and warp the minds of their fragile little children. The same fragile little children that are probably sitting in a field every friday night drinking WKD and inhaling lighter fluid while mammies busy off at a council meeting fighting to help rid the world of the evil shops when she should be at home with her kids.

Yes the mark up on recreational drugs is horrendous. There are some headshops that get one particular plant fruit containing a stimulant with effects similar to amphetamine they grind it up there and then and use hot water as a solvent to extract the active chemicals from it, some people add sugar to this since the concoction is not palatable to them otherwise. Many doctors consider this drug to be more dangerous than amphetamine with worse side effects. Some places even sell this in a concentrated pill form so users can take it far more easily.

The headshops are getting the raw ingredients for about 5-10cent per dose, yet can charge up to €4 to the unwitting customers for this stuff, massive mark up. One of the best know evil headshops selling this stuff is called Bewleys.

I wonder if the government is going to propose free buses to cart people from rural areas into the headshops in major cities, it is unfair that they cannot go to these shops, enjoy a small dose of recreational drugs and then be expected to walk home since they are unfit to drive. These places are the only social outlet for some rural dwellers.

And all this crap about banning alcohol, etc, alcohol & cigarettes are not drugs you fools, if Pat Kenny, my mammy, my daddy, the local priest and sargent take these substances then they surely must be perfectly fine. How on earth could you consider making them illegal, they have been in use for 1000's of years so must be OK, and could never be banned. Those magic mushrooms were banned overnight, but sure they were only in use for a year at most and everybody who took them insisted on taking massive doses and jumped out windows or cut their eyeballs out. Nobody would ever take alcohol to excess.

If any medicinal drug has the potential to make people happy or give them an altered state of conciousness then it should be banned immediately. Dextromethorphan in childrens robitussin should be banned.
Dipenhydramine for hayfever and in sleeping tablets can cause hallucinations and should also be outlawed.

Dragan wrote:

That’s a dangerous question to as me dude!!! I firmly believe people should need a written test before they are allowed to have kids!!!

I'd go further than that...

But you misinterpretted my point, or I didn't put it across the best, in which case I apologise! One of the main arguments that I hear against legalisation of softer drugs is the gateway theory, that X leads to Y and so on. It's more about personality than anything else and the people who need that crutch will always find something be it booze, heroin or nail polish in a plastic bag!!

Very good point. Newsweek had quoted a survey during the summer that said that 3% of cannabis users become heroin addicts, which is the same percentage of the population that never smoked cannabis and still became heroin users. So there is no gateway. I could try and find the study, but I'm lazy and have a tutorial in a few minutes

Tha Gopher wrote:

Honest to god, why do these threads attract such retardation? Brian, how many fcuking junkies do you know whos first taste of drugs was smoking heroin at 13? Your typical junkie started on fags at 9, tried glue next, then got his hands on drink at 11, was smoking hash by 13, on yokes by 14 and hitting heroin by by 15. I dont know too many people who have never smoked a joint,but of those I do know, they are health conscious people who wouldnt go near gear.

How was my point less valid than yours? How many junkies do you know full stop? I offered information from Newsweek, and will try and find the quote to back it up. I didn't say it made cannabis all right. I didn't say we should legalise it? why don't you just step back behind that gun you just jumped?

I would agree with Tha Gopher on that. Highly unlikely, but still absolute faulty logic to brand it a gateway drug. I would imagine something like 99% of heroin addicts have smoked cannabis, but I would imagine 100% of them started out on caffeine. People would laugh at you if you suggested it was a gateway drug.

Keeping cannabis illegal keeps most users in contact with the underworld, where they have access to other drugs. A greater amount of drug users are on more harmful legal drugs, simply because they are legal, and the illegality and lack of source of others deters them.

Even the gardai have stopped using the gateway drug theory in any statements, they realise how ignorant and stupid it sounds, it weakens their argument against hard drugs.