Russia - Russia's Spice Ban Ignored?

[serphen1]

Russian shops openly sell narcotics (photo)

In spite of official ban, sales of banned mixes continues in
country stores. The people who sell the mix named Spice, a
mixture of dried herbs, are sure that it is absolutely harmless.

- At first Spice herb was used exclusively in SPA salons as
incense and then someone got the idea to smoke the stuff and it went on.
-says Samara's DEA specialist Ekaterina Kondareva. One gramm of weed
costs about 900 rubels (27$) and one dose is enough for 5 adults.
We received increased amount of calls on our tip line from people
suffering from smoking the mix. There are reports of fast forming
addiction and there are complaints about unadequate behaviour of
people consuming Spice.

The discussion about how harmful the Spice is was ended by Russia's
Surgeon General Gennady Onishenko, who issued a special resolution.

"I, Russia's Surgeon General, G.G. Onishenko, have analyzed the
information about sales of smoking mixes hereby enact: Forbid all
trade on the territory of Russian Federation, smoking mixes containing
(Salvia divinorum) and/or (Argyreia nervosa) and/or (Nymphea caerulea).
Abovementioned mixes are sold under names AM-HI-CO, Dream, Spice (Gold, Diamond),
Zoom, Ex-ses, Pep Spice, Yucatan Fire and such." - says the SG statement.

Nevertheless the sales go on. - We heard about SG's statement, but
we are not going to wrap the Spice sales just yet. - says salesmen. Our
bosses did not say a thing about it. So the stores still work the same.

As we know, some other regions IGNORED the official ban. For instance,
in Saransk Spice is being sold in 2 dedicated stores.


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Source: http://www.uznayvse.ru/v-rossii/9_v-...u-foto_42.html

[cannabis-sam]

It appears from the article that the ban is on salvia and some other herbs not on the synthetic cannabinoids which are responsible for the effects.

[serphen1]

Exactly. They ban because they think salvia is harmful, not the synth stuff. They don't have the money, time and resources to comlete research as sophisticated as they did in Germany. SWIM thinks it is politics - Surgeon General making it look he does something. As far as I know nobody at the DEA is particulary happy about Spice being sheduled. That would mean a lol more work for them and all the consequences for the users.