Smart shop
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A smart shop (or smartshop) is a retail establishment that specializes in the sale of psychoactive substances, usually including
The rise of anonymous smart shops
Some governments do not tolerate smart shops in any form as a part of their
Typical products specialization
Smart drugs
Smart shops (often webshops) offer prescription-free pharmacy products such as
Psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants
Traditional entheogens
Smart shops are best known in practice for selling whatever
The decline of designer drugs
Smart shops in various countries have been known in the past to sell designer drugs: that is, synthetic substances that were not (yet) illegal. The sale of synthetic drugs not explicitly approved as food, supplements or medicines is illegal in some of them. For example, in the Netherlands it is dealt with by the relatively benign machinery of the Warenautoriteit (Commodities Authority) rather than in criminal law, as would be the case with controlled substances.
Yet, this has made it effectively impossible to sell them in a formal retail setting, even if their production and possession is entirely legitimate. Smart shops have attempted no further marketing of synthetics since they tried to sell methylone as a "room odorizer" but were ultimately forced to pull it from their shelves in 2004, though it can still be obtained under the counter in some shops.
Drug paraphernalia
Smart shops sell many products that can be seen as
Many of the paraphernalia and complements sold in smart shops reduce, in one way or another, the harm associated with illegal drugs. For instance, reagent kits for testing the purity of ecstasy can be essential now that tablets named
Smart shop is distinguished from head shops found in many countries. Head shops provide only paraphernalia, whereas smart shops usually sell at least some actual drugs. The term head shop is more common in the UK,[5] though many British head shops sold magic mushrooms until July 2005 when the Government introduced a complete ban on magic mushrooms, putting them in the same category as heroin and crack cocaine. Many of the British head shops still sell a range of other legal highs.
Education and information
Smart shops have become a natural source of information about the drugs they sell. They commonly provide instruction leaflets similar to the package inserts distributed with prescription drugs, which contain information on contra-indications, side effects, and the importance of set and setting. In the Netherlands, there is relatively little formal regulation of the smart shop industry, but the natural concentration of expertise about a relatively exotic range of products in combination with the realization that closer public scrutiny and regulation are always lurking in the background have caused the smart shops to organize into an industry association that, among other things, promotes the spread of information about its wares.
Legality
The Netherlands
Legally, smart shops operate under a decision of the
There are some shops from the Netherlands that operate as both a smart shop and a head shop on an international level. Customers are expected to accept the responsibility to inform themselves about the local laws, import and custom regulations before ordering and to certify that the import to their country of the products ordered is legal.
As of December 1, 2008, the sale of magic mushrooms was subject to tighter control in the Netherlands.
This legal regime is markedly different from the one that applies to
Republic of Ireland
In the Republic of Ireland, there was a sharp rise in Smart shops around the Celtic Tiger era, however, given new government legislations against psychoactive substances, Smart shops that do still operate in the Republic Of Ireland have become shops for paraphernalia and growing equipment, more comparable to a Head Shop.
UK
As with UK based head shops, both paraphernalia and "legal highs" are available from these stores, such as
Since the passing of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, the sale of any chemical substance which alters or affects mental functioning in any way is illegal. This has effectively rendered the term "smartshop" obsolete in the UK.
Portugal
In Portugal, prior to March 2013, the drug laws were very liberal, and several smartshops were opened. A chain store, called Magic Mushroom, emerged as the market leader. Shops in Portugal still sell all type of herbal incense and plant feeders. In March 2013, the Portuguese Government enacted a law making it illegal to sell psychoactive drugs, thus ending the smartshop business in the country.[6]
See also
- October 2010 raid on smart shops in Poland
- Drug policy of the Netherlands
- Coffeeshop
References
- ^ "Silk Road 2.0 Is now Officially open!". DeepDotWeb. Archived from the original on 2014-06-20. Retrieved 2014-05-26.
- ^ "Online HeadShop". Saturday, 30 March 2019
- ^ "Will 'Smart Drugs' Really Make Us Smarter, or Just Ruin Our Lives?".
- ^ "Psilocybin mushrooms".
- ^ "Magic mushrooms in the Uk".
- ^ Governo encerra smartshops - Expresso.pt