A law criminalising the possession or sale of headshop drugs appears to have had the desired effect of reducing usage among young people who had been using in a problematic way, according to a study by researchers at Trinity College Dublin.
The study, So Prohibition Can Work?, looked specifically at the use of “new psychoactive substances” (NPS)/headshop drugs by adolescents attending the Youth Drug and Alcohol outpatient service in Dublin, comparing the six months immediately prior to the ban in May 2010 to the same six-month period the following year.
The average age of the groups studied was 17 and predominantly male.
Researchers found that the percentage of problematic NPS users dropped from 34% in the first group to 0% in the second group. The percentage who had occasionally used any headshop drug in the previous three months also dropped dramatically from 82% in the pre-ban group to 28% in the post-ban group.
Source: Catherine Shanahan, Irish Examiner, 30/06/15
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