Counsellors say head shops are 'complicating' drugs battle

So-called "head shops" selling "legal highs" are complicating the work of voluntary organisations fighting drugs in Mullingar, the manager of the local Open Door Project said this week.James Hennessy told the Westmeath Examiner that 24 percent of cases dealt with by the centre - which assists people dealing with addiction or other life problems - concern men and women affected by products sold at "head shops"."We have seen a marked rise in the number of people suffering from drug induced psychosis, or other side effects of 'legal highs'," Mr. Hennessy said.Such is the variety of different chemicals employed in these products, that staff at the Open Door project face a desperate battle to cope with the side effects."We can recognise the effects suffered by someone who overdoses on heroin or cocaine, but with the stuff in head shops, like Charge or Fire and Ice, we're just not geared up for that."With many of these things, we just don't know what the effects are. Often the chemical markers can be changed in one of them, and you get a completely different drug with different effects."Quite a few people who we speak to here are drug users who say that products in the head shops are far more powerful and potent than regular drugs."Mr. Hennessy said that the Government should look at ways of hitting these shops through business levies, or look at employing legislation which protects vulnerable adults.Patrick Nevin, a volunteer at the Open Door Project, and his brother Hughie,continued from fronta recovering heroin addict, called on the Government to ban head shops, saying that they only aggravated Ireland's drugs problem."The head shops sell stuff that I think drives people onto harder drugs," Patrick said, adding that he wasn't convinced that everyone frequenting head shops was over the age of 18.His brother, Hughie said that he used head shops a number of times during his addiction.He said that the shops "wouldn't help" people recovering from harder drugs."It's the start of a slippery slope too," he said, referring to people using "legal highs" in a recreational way.To learn more about the work done by the Open Door Project, see page 10 of this week's edition.• In a poll carried out online by the Westmeath Examiner this week on the subject of headshops, 61 per cent of respondents said they couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about; 30 per cent said they should be closed; 4 per cent said they should be better regulated; and 4 per cent felt that if the products they were selling were legal, there was no need to close them.