VICE claims in a very short article that "the End is Nigh For British Headshops"

[Si Dread]

VICE claims in a very short article that "the End is Nigh For British Headshops"

Since the first counterculture store ​Alchemy was opened by hippie legend Lee Harris in West London's Portobello Road in 1972, head shops have become nearly as ubiquitous as Pizza Express.

There are hundreds of them dotted around the nation's high streets and side streets, selling a pick 'n' mix menu of anything from fairy orbs and salvia, to Tibetan singing bowls and ​Exodus Damnation. They have been joined by a ​growing number of mainstream shops – such as takeaways, tattoo parlours, petrol stations and newsagents – whose struggling owners have decided to keep the wolf from the door with a lucrative sideline in new psychoactive substances (NPS).

But soon, maybe before the next election in 2015, many of these places will have vanished and become betting shops and mini Tescos.

On the 30th of October, the government ​announced it had accepted the recommendation of a panel of experts to introduce a blanket ban on everything that gets you high, prohibiting the distribution, supply, importation and exportation of all psychoactive substances. Tobacco, alcohol, coffee and psychoactive medicines, those deadly drugs that Britain holds so close to its bosom, will be exempt from the ban.

from - http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-end-is-nigh-for-britains-legal-high-shops-narcomania-015

 

[DrGreenthumb]

How are they ever going to enforce this?

What about solvents? Alloy wheel cleaning fluid? I mean petrol can get you high (not advisable), will they make us all ride bikes? Are they going to ban aerosols & lighters? What about people who really do want instant whipped cream?

Then there will be jokers claiming to get high off non-psychoactive substances, so how do they prove that something new is actually psychoactive?

They can't enforce the current laws against people selling illegal drugs, this is going to be horrendous unless you're a drug dealer, it'll be boom time again for them.

Are we going to see lots of kids dropping dead from solvent abuse again, like in the 80s?

They should listen to this woman, she knows more than the whole of parliament combined, sadly... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_LFcYQ6VcM

 

[slimvictor]

^ Exactly my thoughts.
Good luck defining "psychoactive".
And what about chocolate, which is clearly psychoactive and not on the list below?

On the 30th of October, the government ​announced it had accepted the recommendation of a panel of experts to introduce a blanket ban on everything that gets you high, prohibiting the distribution, supply, importation and exportation of all psychoactive substances. Tobacco, alcohol, coffee and psychoactive medicines, those deadly drugs that Britain holds so close to its bosom, will be exempt from the ban.

And the reason that tobacco etc. will be exempt?
(It involves money in a big way, but they are unlikely to want to say that.)