THE HAPPY Hippy head shop on North Frederick Street in Dublin was doing a brisk trade yesterday as customers availed of its Easter special offer: 3g of Bombay Blue incense for €20.
Like most substances sold in head shops, Bombay Blue incense is marketed as one thing and consumed by punters in another way entirely. Customers use it to get a legal high similar to that provided by cannabis.
The presence of two gardaí outside the shop on a “monitoring operation” did not seem to put off any customers, who occasionally stopped for a chat with the boys in blue.
“I don’t feel intimidated by them – this is legal,” said one of three young men who were clearly feeling the effects of a long weekend of substance abuse.
They had arrived to buy a legal equivalent to ecstasy and freely admitted, although none would give their names, to spending hundreds of euros on legal highs in head shops over the weekend.
“They won’t be able to stop people buying these things even if they close shops,” said one of the men. “People will be able to buy them on the street.”
A shop assistant standing behind a perspex screen in the Happy Hippy said the Garda monitoring was unlikely to deter customers.
Five minutes walk away at the Hemp Stop head shop, the manager said he thought the monitoring operation was designed to “intimidate his customers”.
It was a similar tale at several other city-centre head shops which had a Garda presence over the Easter period.
However, with no law in place banning the substances, the Garda monitoring is unlikely stop the procession of young people prepared to dabble in legal highs advertised as plant food or bath salts.
