Narconomics by Wainwright Tom

Author:Wainwright, Tom
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-6103-9584-7
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2016-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

INNOVATING AHEAD OF THE LAW

Research and Development in the “Legal Highs” Industry

Between a beauty salon and a fish-and-chip shop on a busy road in north London is a narrow little store with a greenish light shining through its steamed-up windows. Inside, psychedelic trance music plays softly in the background. Along one wall is a row of illuminated cabinets displaying the goods on offer. There are pipes and bongs, in all kinds of novelty shapes: a gun, a gas mask, a big pair of porcelain breasts. A clothing rail is loaded up with cannabis-themed T-shirts. One cupboard holds various innocuous-looking containers, including cans of beer and tubes of Pringles, which unscrew to reveal hidden compartments in which to secrete one’s “stash” (of what, the shop does not suggest). People with things to hide can also buy a working computer mouse that contains a tiny, hidden safe.

Head shops like this one are just about tolerated in most countries on the basis that the “lifestyle accessories” they sell are, in theory, not supposed to be used with drugs. The many and varied bongs and pipes “are sold on the understanding that they will not be used as a means of smoking illegal substances,” the company says on its website. As far as the managers are concerned, consumers will presumably sit back in their cannabis-leaf patterned T-shirts and use their cannabis-patterned lighters to spark up a Bob Marley–themed bong filled with . . . tobacco.

The authorities seldom kick up a fuss because head shops don’t supply the drugs themselves. But nowadays, this is changing. On sale online and in almost any major city, from London to Los Angeles, are psychoactive substances in a new class, known variously as “legal highs” or “designer drugs.” Concocted in laboratories rather than on Andean hillsides or in Afghan poppy fields, these synthetic drugs mimic the effects of more mainstream narcotics. Some are close cousins of MDMA, also known as ecstasy. Others claim to have an effect closer to that of cannabis. The game-changing difference is that in most jurisdictions these fast-evolving chemical highs are completely legal to sell, possess, and consume.

I ask the friendly, bearded young man behind the counter if he has any legal highs for sale. “Well, they’re not ‘highs,’ because they’re not for human consumption,” he says, his freckled young face completely inscrutable. “But”—and he raises an eyebrow very slightly—“I do have some aromatherapy incense, if you would like to see that.” I ask to examine a selection, and he brings out five packets of what he says are the most popular ones (“I can’t actually recommend any, obviously”) from under the counter. The glossy, plastic packets are about the size and thickness of a pack of baseball cards. Each costs £10 ($15) and contains one gram of “incense,” or whatever one wants to call the substance inside. One packet, “Jammin’ Joker,” shows a dreadlocked smiley face in sunglasses wearing a Rastafarian-style hat; another, “Psy-clone,” has swirls of colors, its letters in a back-to-front jumble.

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