Caldicott attributes the crackdown on illegal drugs in many countries to the development of legal highs. Then there`s #link:www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/04/psychonauts-drugs-experiment-chemistry-legal-highs:Psychonauts# who test new compounds and make guinea pigs before blogging about their experiences – how long the drug took to work, what the effects were, dosages – so that others can find and experiment with them, whatever the outcome. Were there more legal highs, I wondered, than that? Uncertainties about the composition of drugs and how they affect those who take them surround legal highs and make them dangerous, according to David Caldicott, an emergency physician at Calvary Hospital in Canberra, Australia`s capital. Last December, after initial grumbling in Germany over the legality of its ingredients, the UK`s Advisory Council on Drug Abuse began investigating Spice. In August, the council recommended that the government ban Spice (and similar derivatives), and by 2010 it will be illegal — an “unprecedented” move, according to Martin Barnes, chief executive of DrugScope, who can`t recall another time when a synthetic replica of an illicit drug itself became illegal. DrugScope`s recent survey highlighted the declining quality of street drugs as the reason why legal highs are becoming increasingly popular. The mephedrone Tim took was much cleaner than anything he had probably bought from a merchant. It had not been cut with chalk, crushed aspirin or Dreft detergent; It had been mass-produced in a factory, probably in China, imported by a wholesaler and sold by a headshop – pure. He posted a description of his experience on an online drug forum to warn others of the same miscalculation. “Non-human consumption is probably morally the worst thing we do as an industry,” Hall said. They compared their work to that of a “naughty Holland & Barrett”, but like my salesman in Edinburgh, the couple has to play a tidal game with legislators: legal highs must be effective enough to attract a market, but not effective enough to attract the attention of the advisory board, which becomes aware of the substances when they show up in amnesty containers in clubs. Or when users report problems to treatment centers or when the tabloid press stinks.
The shopkeeper says she does not sell legal drugs to minors and refuses to sell to anyone who says they are considering injecting the substances. Just The Thing is now the only store on Albert Street that sells legal highs. Two other stores, allegedly owned by the same woman, have closed. One store now has a new name, while the other has metal shutters above the façade. The industry featured a friendlier, more modern face in the home of John Clarke and Jo Hall, University of Birmingham graduates who run an online legal retailer called Coffeesh0p.com. The couple had leaned a giant teddy bear next to a stack of Tupperware boxes of colorful lotus leaves, powdered toads, and Hawaiian wood rose seeds; above a dresser filled with cardboard envelopes with guaranno pills and pre-rolled kratom joints was a poster of Sean Bean to Sharpe. I was surprised by the appearance of some of my fellow buyers during my visit to the headshop in Edinburgh. Yes, there was the type of student hanging around and a mid-twenties group who were ostensibly told to come back later for something that couldn`t be sold in front of me. But there was also a middle-aged woman who sought out the whole world as the respectable mother in an advertisement for margarine or a multi-surface cleaner.
“Usually?” the seller asked, to which she replied in the affirmative, chatting about the weather for a minute or two, and leaving with three bags of expensive kratom. Before BZP became illegal, James bought it in small, colorful packaging in a headshop, a store specializing in tobacco, legal drugs and drug paraphernalia. “They came in capsule form,” James says. “There were three or four and we should take them all. Because they were legal, we thought they were safe. The new psychoactive substances – or so-called “legal highs” – are being used as an alternative to their illicit cousins, many mimicking the effects of cocaine, cannabis and amphetamines. It has been confirmed that an Arbroath man suspected of supplying and marketing the New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) has been charged by police in connection with Operation Carinate. However, the owner of Just The Thing on Albert Street in Stobswell, who openly sells legal highs, says she will continue to do so. “It pays the bills,” said Clarke, 22, who started the company three years ago while studying pharmacology. Today, its customers range from students drawn to the ease of online shopping to professionals looking for substances that wouldn`t show up on workplace drug tests.
There was a professor from the local university who made regular purchases; also photographer, seller and seller of yachts. “We sold last month to a 30-year-old couple. It was their birthday, a weekend without the kids, and they wanted to have an interesting time. I think you`ll be surprised that our customers aren`t just 18-year-olds who want to get high. There is a whole culture of reasonable people there. Most predict that mephedrone will be the next substance to be reviewed by the government (“I can imagine most users will source before the inevitable,” said Duncan Dick of Mixmag). Martin Barnes told me that even in the week before our conversation, DrugScope had received an increase in calls from treatment centers asking for information about the drug.