Health Minister Mary Harney announced the ban just a day after the EC allowed the Irish Government to introduce the legislation without observing a three-month consultation period due to increasing concern about the associated health-risks of legal highs.
This followed an application by Minister Harney to the Commission to use an urgency procedure and introduce the legislation as quickly as possible.
Consultant psychiatrist at St Loman’s Hospital, Mullingar, Dr Seán Ó Domhnaill said it was a huge relief that Minister Harney took the initiative after the recommendations by clinicians in the field.
Dr Ó Domhnaill said there remained a need, however, for fairly imaginative legislation to ban substances with psychoactive effects as opposed to a list of substances, judging by the list of new legal highs waiting to come into Ireland “otherwise we would have to come up with a new list of banned substances every week and we could be at it for years”.
Dr Ó Domhnaill said there was also a need to adequately support and resource the drug treatment and voluntary sector agencies because in times of recession people tend to abuse drugs and alcohol more.
Fine Gael health spokesperson Dr James Reilly also welcomed the legislation but said it was imperative that Ireland also seeks to pre-empt the arrival of new products onto head shop shelves. “We must legislate so that no substance for human consumption should be sold across any counter unless it has been approved by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland or the Irish Medicines Board”, he maintained.
The Government Order also controls a number of other substances that are not legal highs but which have the potential to be misused. These include certain narcotic and psychotropic substances.
Source: The Irish Medical News, 17/05/2010
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