David Norris (Independent)

I very much welcome the opportunity to make a statement on this topic and, in particular, the time and trouble the Minister has taken to come into the House. I certainly have some suggestions to make as to how this matter can be addressed.

This issue has been evident for quite a while but in a minor way, although there have been tragic casualties resulting from the ingestion of magic mushrooms, psilocybin and other similar products. The Minister has acted directly under existing legislation, particularly the control of medicines Act, to outlaw the sale of magic mushrooms. However, that can only be partially effective, as people can still identify the fungi, pick them and take them. However, their sale in shops has been effectively curbed. The same has happened to BZP, benzylpiperazine, which has been shown to have serious adverse effects.

This issue was dormant and the Minister had examined certain aspects of it. That was until I heard some weeks ago a radio interview with a young doctor. He indicated that there had been an influx of people into casualty departments as a result of taking head shop substances which led to panic attacks, severe and recurring psychotic episodes and, like LSD, caused unpredictable results further down the line. It is clear head shops, so-called, have proliferated in the last while. According to the Garda, they are developing at the rate of one a month. As a result of this, I tabled a motion on 20 January seeking their regulation.

Subsequently, I heard Joe Duffy on his radio programme claim no one in Leinster House was listening to the concerns expressed about these shops and that the politicians, as usual, were doing absolutely nothing about it. I e-mailed him to say I had tabled a motion to that effect, raised the matter on the Order of Business and that the Seanad was moving towards all-party agreement on the issue. There were suggestions the motion be taken without debate but I am glad we decided on the making of statements. Mr. Duffy was on again today about the matter and I am glad Miss Grainne Kenny, a well known campaigner on the issue, drew his attention to the fact that Seanad Éireann was debating it. This shows we can be relevant, at least sometimes.

I know Miss Kenny would not agree with my position on drugs but I have been consistent on the issue. For many years I have said the way to address the drugs problem is through legalisation, regulation and quality control. Accordingly, the number of deaths would drop substantially. The level of crime would certainly be more than halved, even by 80% in inner cities, and the prison population would drop dramatically. However, I recognise this is a large political problem and cannot be tackled by one small country on its own. What I have recommended for illicit drugs, however, I recommend for head shops.

The traditional danger posed by head shop products is that they are untested, with very little oversight required in bringing them to the market. They are not tested on human beings and most of the data gathered are based on user reports. We only know their effects when a person appears in hospital or at his or her GP's surgery. There is even less information available on these products and their possible side effects when combined with other drugs such as alcohol, prescription medications, other head shop products or cannabis, heroin and cocaine. The medical profession has often stated there is a real problem of multiple addiction through the interactive use of these substances which can be very dangerous. The chairman of the national advisory committee on drugs, Dr. Des Corrigan, said the majority of these products would not meet basic standards of quality control. That makes them even more dangerous. As I indicated, the Minister has acted and some of the substances that were available in head shops have now been banned.

There are difficulties. Even in the United States which traditionally has had a strict drug enforcement policy head shops continue to operate and have proved difficult and expensive to remove, as they operate in a grey area, as I have seen here in Dublin. They sell bongs, with which I am sure the Minister is unfamiliar, which allow the most efficient inhalation of the fumes of cannabis resin which is burned using a water pipe, frequently made of glass. They are marketed as water pipes. One is told rolling paper is used to roll ordinary tobacco.

Then there are legal drugs and herbal supplements, some of which have been mentioned, including bath salts. I must say that was laughable. If there is such a demand for bath salts, how many go into a pharmacy to say they would like a packet of Radox because they want to stick it up their noses? The answer is very few; it would probably be quite dangerous if they were to use in this way. However, because they are sold as herbal medicines, bath salts, disinfectants, garden products, etc., they are queasily obviating their moral responsibility for what happens to those who take them because they are selling them in the sure and certain knowledge that the label on the packet is just a device to evade the law. Some of the products are naturally occurring and genuinely herbal. I did an experiment while I was in Cyprus where I read a detective novel in which one of the characters got high smoking nutmeg, a perfectly ordinary domestic product. I put some in a cigarette and smoked it to see if I could smoke something in the kitchen that would have an effect. It was an interesting experiment. Nothing happened - it was extremely disappointing - until I went to sleep when I had the most extraordinary collection of nightmares I had ever had in my life and it did not encourage me to repeat the experiment. That indicates how difficult this issue is, if these substances are mind-changing or hallucinogenic and are available in the kitchen. One cannot start to ban spices. We are in a difficult position.

That is one of the other reasons regulation is better. Instead of attempting to close all head shops, we could place the focus on researching the effects and properties of these legal products which make one high. It is important that we provide funding for research into these products, that there be an oversight committee responsible for their quality and which would also be able to ban anything that contained illicit drugs or products, as in the case of magic mushrooms.

There is a Misuse of Drugs Act which was amended in 1988, 1999, 2006 and 2009. However, the problem is that, although portions of it were changed or updated, the portion relevant to this debate has remained the essentially the same. The problem is that Act classifies illegal drugs by their specific chemical composition and the manufacturers have got very clever. By altering one or two elements, or making small changes to the molecular composition of drugs, they can produce something which is very close to cocaine but with which, legally, they have got round the definition and which is not defined under the law as an illegal drug. Many of the legal drugs involved produce similar results to the illegal ones such as speed, cocaine and cannabis, but they are demonstrably chemically distinct and, therefore, not covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act. By making drugs similar in chemical composition to the illegal ones but not the same, they avoid the ban.

What is the solution? I do not know whether the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, has looked at the American legislation, but there is on the Statute Book in the United States an Act entitled the Controlled Substances Analogues Act. This American law could be helpful in the regulation of head shop products. Essentially, it states any substance, the effect or chemical composition of which is substantially similar to controlled substances may also be considered illegal. I recommend to the Minister that such should be the nub of whatever we introduce here, in other words, any substance, the effect or chemical composition of which is substantially similar is also outlawed. That is part of the solution. It would be a clean, simple and effective way of getting right to the nub of the matter.

In the United Kingdom the Medicines Act 1968 governs the supply and manufacture of medicines. Three categories of medicines are provided for: prescription only medicines, medicines provided by a pharmacist without a prescription and general medicines bought in a store. They have made progress by prosecuting people for the use or possession of certain head shop products on the assertion that they are medicinal in nature and thus misusing or possessing them without a prescription is illegal. This has met with marginal success, as it is only an offence to have prescription medication without a prescription if that medicine is covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act. It will, therefore, be difficult to ban them outright. As a libertarian, I am not sure I am 100% in favour of such a move. However, we can use this information on the American legislation and the United Kingdom precedent to address the problem with simple, clear, direct and effective legislation.

In addition to the resources available to this House, we are lucky to have assistants and researchers provided by the Institute of Public Administration. The information on the American precedent, for example, was garnered for me by Mr. Zach Cohen, my assistant. Getting young people involved in researching a subject such as this is beneficial, both to them and us. I am glad to record my thanks to him for his research work which has suggested something which perhaps the Minister will take up.