UPDATE 1 - As Prime Minister Donald Tusk announces legislation to fight the popularity of designer drugs in Poland, retailers are claiming that the state will lose millions in tax if shops remain closed, young people will be driven into the hands of criminal gangs and they have threatened to sue authorities over restriction of trade.

After a meeting of the cabinet, Tuesday afternoon, PM Tusk said that the government had adopted a draft law which would prevent the sale of smart drugs over the counter in Poland.

The bill proposes a ban on producing and marketing products containing psychotropic substances. Health inspectors will be able to close down shops selling smart drugs if they contain banned substances.

Retailers could face a fine of between 20,000 to one million zloty (5,000 to 250,000 euro) if they break the law, PM Tusk said.

A poll by SMG/KRC found that 91 percent support the recent police raids of hundreds of shops across Poland selling the drugs which have so far escaped the attention of legislators.

 

In the past few days over 1,800 smart drug shops have had a visit from the police and 1000 of them closed down in a nation-wide anti-smart drug campaign launched by Health Ministry following a string of reports linking “legal highs” with several deaths in recent months.

 

A company which originally sold the drugs over the internet, and then opened a franchise operation with hundreds of retail outlets across Poland has set up a clock on its web site counting the amount of damages which the state will have to pay to smart shops owners for closing them down. Another clock estimates the amount of tax that will be lost to the state.

 

Smart clock

 

At the time of writing, the clock – which is rapidly moving upwards - was at over 14 million zloty (3.3 million euro).

 

Dopalacze.com also announces that it is not legal smart drug shops that should take responsibility for recent hospitalizations and deaths but illegal shops whuch they have no control over.

 

“After 25 August, when a new bill on drugs was implemented, many products had to be withdrawn from smart drug shops because they contained dangerous substances, such as mephedrone,” says a statement by the company. “These products later appeared on the black market, controlled by criminal gangs and were used to produce new smart drugs. Primitive methods and dangerous substances were introduced to produce fake smart drugs,” the statement adds.

 

Smart drug dealers claim that the state treasury has earned up to 600 million zloty (152 million euro) a year on smart drug industry as 1,000 smart shops earned on average up to 15 million zloty (4 million euro) a week from sales.

 

Health inspectors have announced that it could take half a year to re-open the shops as each product needs to be tested. “We need to examine the samples to check whether they contain harmful substances. Until then several smart shops will have to be closed down,” said Jan Bondar from the Health Inspectorate.

 

Smart shop owners also claim that interest in the products is rocketing since a flood of reports has appeared in the media about their products, proving that bad publicity can be good publicity. (pg/mg)