The Dublin People group is publishing the winning entries to the ‘Let’s Talk About Drugs’ Media Awards 2010 over the coming weeks. The annual awards are organised by the Greater  Blanchardstown Response
to Drugs (GBRD) and sponsored by the Blanchardstown Local Drugs Task Force and
the County Dublin Vocational Education Committee.
 All the winning entries can be downloaded from the GBRD website at www.gbrd.ie.
 This week's article is by Emer Halpenny from Stillorgan who came first in the adult category.

WHEN Andrea first took acid she thought she’d kill someone so she locked herself into her house.
For ten hours she endured panic attacks and hallucinations. She watched her boyfriend’s head turn into a green and purple serpent monster.
“The carpet moved, but time didn’t,” she said. “Cigarettes appeared stuck to my fingers. I ended up in therapy.”
Thirty-eight-year-old Andrea – or Andi – hasn’t taken drugs for four weeks now, but she was happy to show me, an ignorant suburban mother of two, around some of Dublin city’s head shops.
“You won’t get acid in a head shop, but you used to get herbal ecstasy which does the same thing,” said Andi as we entered a well known head shop.
Neat rows of brightly coloured packages with witty names and pictures appealed to every personality: ‘Snow blow’; ‘Bliss’; ‘Sextacy.’ As we peered through the glass cabinet under the eye of the shopkeeper, I wondered if there might be one called ‘Desperate Housewife’.
“That’s new," Andi said, pointing to one called 'Ivory Wave’.
“What is it?” I asked, a little too innocent in tone.
The shopkeeper answered: “It’s bath salts.”
Possibly he sensed I wasn’t a regular customer. Andi stifled a laugh, “Yeah, I have a lot of baths,” She said.
“Those are really strong bath salts," he replied.
As Andi questioned him as to why they were so cheap, I wandered around, trying to blend in. Above a motorbike adorned with images of cannabis, t-shirts hung for sale. A pink one read: ‘Good girls go to heaven, bad girls have an addiction.’
I flicked through books on marijuana horticulture. I was about to dip into ‘Drug Etiquette - What’s Cool’ when Andi called me over to show me some ‘Part E’ pills.
We admired the rows of pretty bongs and bowls and above them, tiny silver Hoovers. Andi laughed, “a Hoover to snort coke or speed, that’s hilarious.”
Before my field trip to the head shops, I thought they seemed harmless enough, just selling paraphernalia and herbs, but Andi was adamant that the effect from the so called herbal highs was exactly the same as drugs like speed.
“And it’s no coincidence that violence has gone up in the city centre,” she said. “Head shops are popping up all over the place. If you stand still long enough, one will probably open in front of your eyes.”
While Andi acknowledges that taking speed and other amphetamines made her miserable, she does think head shops are safe.
“The police watch people who take drugs,” she said. “If you get your stuff from a dealer, there’s a good chance you can get busted.”
Andi has been searched by police three times, twice she was strip searched.
“At least if you’re buying in a head shop you won’t get busted. Mind you, if you have a bag of white powder in your pockets, they’re going to get you anyway.”
In another head shop we found a  gardener’s paradise; rows of spinach, green beans and orchids, thriving under hot lamps. A free publication called ‘Soft Secrets’ offered advice on growing your own cannabis, what hot lamp systems to use and where to go to around Europe for the best smoke.
To suggest that head shops are not selling drugs is laughable, but as Andi says, people who take drugs are going to take them anyway. Smoking a bit of hash may seem harmless enough, but as Andi knows, it doesn’t always end there.
Hitting a real low a few weeks ago, Andi told her mother what to do with her ashes after she had taken her own life. Thankfully she didn’t try and she has moved on.
Four weeks after cutting drugs out of her life, Andi looked younger, prettier and happier than I had seen her for years. She talked openly and frankly about the mess she had made of her life through drugs.
In her case, drugs are all around her, she can get them easily with or without head shops. But I’m thinking of my daughters, who in a few short years will be old enough to go into town with their friends.
What I saw in the head shops were attractive candy packaged drugs – herbal or not. These shops are popping up on every street corner making it all too easy for teenagers to drop in to have a look around. The terminology assures you these herbal highs are natural and harmless. The paraphernalia looks good. The message is alarmingly clear; it’s really cool to take this stuff.
I can’t keep my children safely at home with me forever, but I’d rather know that at least there is no gingerbread house just around the corner to entice them into a world of potential danger.
Head shops may be legal, but they’re not nice.