The Czech Republic Annual Report 2010 Drug ... - Drogy-info.cz

conducted directly in and near the regular shops which offered the legal highs (Národní monitorovací středisko pro
drogy a drogové závislosti and Median, 2011b), and a survey as part of a bachelor’s thesis named The Possibilities
of Regulating the Market in the So-Called ‘Designer Drugs’ (Turek, 2011). These studies explored the extent of the
use of NSDs among the general population, the practices of the users in the area of the use and purchasing of
NSDs, and the opinions of various respondent groups (sellers, customers, local authorities and citizens, and drug
experts) regarding the issue of NSDs.
The questionnaire survey conducted by the National Focal Point among 156 coordinators and local experts showed
that before April 2011, retail outlets selling legal highs were found in almost all the regions of the Czech Republic
except the South Bohemia, Pilsen, and Zlín regions; they were situated in 24 towns and cities, especially in the
Moravia-Silesia, Pardubice, and Karlovy Vary regions. The total number reported could reach up to 40 shops in the
entire Czech Republic; see Table 10-2.
Table 10-2: Shops selling new synthetic drugs (legal highs) in the Czech Republic in April 2011 (Národní monitorovací
středisko pro drogy a drogové závislosti, 2011a)
Region
Most commonly
Maximum
Total number
reported
Aware of
reported number
of
In cities/towns
number of
a shop
of shops in the
respondents
shops in the
region
region
Prague 6 4 Prague 1, 3 2 2
Central Bohemia 8 1 Mladá Boleslav 1 1
South Bohemia 14 0 – – –
Pilsen 1 0 – – –
Karlovy Vary 16 8
Karlovy Vary, Kynšperk
nad Ohří
2 3
Ústí nad Labem 4 1 Teplice 1 1
Liberec 9 5 Liberec 3 4
Hradec Králové 10 5 Hradec Králové, Náchod 1 3
Pardubice 15 12 Pardubice, Chrudim 2–3 6
Vysočina 0 0 – – –
South Moravia 9 3 Brno 2 3
Olomouc 9 7 Olomouc, Jeseník 1 3
Zlín 8 0 – – –
Moravia-Silesia 46 35
Ostrava, Český Těšín,
Frýdek-Místek, Opava,
Havířov, Bohumín, Orlová,
1–2 15
Karviná, Bruntál, Třinec,
Krnov
Total 155 81 24 cities/towns 17 41
According to the respondents, the shops concerned were mainly of the Amsterdam Shop/smart shop type (89
responses), shops selling growing supplies (13 responses), tobacconist’s shops (7 replies), shops selling ethnic
goods (5), and other shops (7).
The results found across all the studies showed that legal highs were purchased and used especially by younger
people aged 15–35 or even 15–24, who were predominantly experimenters. However, problem drug users were
also reported to be among the target groups of the shops. The motivation for the purchase was the ready availability
of NSDs and their low price, legality, and the consequent feeling of safety. The customers of these shops mostly
used the NSDs they purchased in a group with their friends; they had learnt about the NSDs from their friends or
chose them according to the product’s name. The NSDs were most commonly sold in powder form or as herbal
mixtures (Mefedron, El Padrino, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Kokolino were the most common products), but their
composition and the concentration of the active substances mostly remained unknown to the customers; see also
the chapter on Use of New Synthetic Drugs (p. 32).
The shop assistants in the bricks-and-mortar shops mostly operated as intermediaries who only accepted the money
and released the goods. The e-shops provided at least the basic information about the substances and, in
approximately half of the cases, also information about the composition and effects of the products. The shop
assistants in the regular shops often emphasised the collector’s nature of the items being sold, thus waiving any
responsibility for any use of the NSD by the buyer. In some cases the shop assistants declared that the products
could only be sold to persons over 18 years of age.
The customers were mostly satisfied with the operation of the shops. The prevailing opinion among the customers,
the local community, and local authorities was (to a varying degree) that these shops should be regulated or even
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