Smart shop

Psychedelic filmA smart shop (or smartshop) is a retail establishment that specializes in the sales of psychoactive substances, usually including psychedelics, as well as related literature and paraphernalia. The name derives from the name 'smart drugs', a class of drugs and food supplements intended to effect cognitive enhancements which are often on sale in smart shops. A smart shop (or smartshop) is a retail establishment that specializes in the sales of psychoactive substances, usually including psychedelics, as well as related literature and paraphernalia. The name derives from the name 'smart drugs', a class of drugs and food supplements intended to effect cognitive enhancements which are often on sale in smart shops. Some governments do not tolerate smart shops in any form as a part of their crime prevention. For example, the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden with its zero tolerance drug policy, does not accept physical smart shops and has shut down every known Swedish online smart shop that have been selling pure research chemicals on the visible Web. To circumvent this the usage of anonymous marketplaces through the Tor network have taken over since the establishment of Silk Road, which in contrast took the FBI two and a half years to take down for one month. Smart shops (often webshops) offer prescription-free pharmacy products such as Ritalin, Adderall, and modafinil, for example. Smart shops are best known in practice for selling whatever psychedelics, dissociatives, entactogens and deliriants local law permits. In the Netherlands, which is home to most of the smart shops in Europe, this includes Salvia divinorum, Amanita muscaria, Peyote, San Pedro cactus, Tabernanthe iboga, and various ingredients for Ayahuasca preparations. As of 1 December 2008, magic mushrooms are under stricter control in the Netherlands. Those new controls are quite controversial, because the list of banned mushrooms also contains species that have no psychoactive substances. Magic Mushroom spore prints and grow boxes are still available over the counter in the Netherlands. Psilocybin is not included in the ban and continues to be sold in smart shops nationwide in truffle form. 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. Smart shops sell many products that can be seen as complement goods to psychoactive drugs, including illegal ones. In the Netherlands, which has no drug paraphernalia laws, this is entirely legal. In particular, the sales of literature about illegal drugs or their manufacture is rarely criticized and protected by a traditional concern for free speech in local law and custom that is more pronounced than in other European nations. 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 ecstasy can in practice contain just about anything, and often do not, in fact, contain MDMA at all. Supplements of vitamins and amino acids have been developed to mitigate specifically the damage of certain illegal drugs. Tryptophan and 5-hydroxy-tryptophan, for instance, can be used to help the body replenish serotonin levels in the brain after the use of MDMA, and vitamin supplements are appropriate for users of stimulants such as amphetamine. Vitamin B12 is depleted by recreational use of nitrous oxide, and is thereby useful. 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, 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.