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Psychosis fears over vapes sold in Ireland despite ban

The letter warns the continued provision of these substances is suggestive of flaws in Irish drug policy and enforcement that require ongoing attention

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A woman with a vape. (stock image) (Image: William Lailey / SWNS)

Irish psychiatrists have warned that cannabis-like drugs in vapes and gummies continue to be sold commercially in Ireland despite a 2025 ban on HHC.

Hexahydrocannabinol, a semi-synthetic cannabinoid sold in vapes and edibles, has been illegal in Ireland since last July after psychiatrists raised concerns about severe psychosis in young men.

But in a letter published in the latest edition of the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, Prof Mary Cannon and RCSI PhD researcher Ben Bond warn that semi-synthetic cannabinoids remain a potent concern in Ireland.

They state that new versions of cannabis-like drugs known as semi-synthetic cannabinoids and other substitutes continue to be sold commercially despite recent law changes that attempted to prohibit their sale.

The letter warns the continued provision of these substances is suggestive of flaws in Irish drug policy and enforcement that require ongoing attention.

The authors from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland called for further political and legislative action to protect young people from the substances sold in products such as vapes and sweets.

This legislative approach will likely prove insufficient as the businesses that previously supplied HHC have rapidly updated their product offerings, bringing new ambiguously labelled HHC alternatives to market which appear to fall outside of current regulations, e.g., miscellaneous cannabinoid blends and tetrahydrocannabinolic acid, said the letter.

The response of these entrepreneurs underscores the need for proactive government monitoring of the cannabinoid market to ensure that novel and harmful cannabis-like drugs are removed rapidly from outlets before reaching the public.

Mr Bond, one of the authors of the letter, said there is no research available to give an indication of how these new substances, which are available in products like vapes and gummies, will affect people.

What theyre doing now, effectively, is that theyre taking inspiration from almost whatever they can to try and form new versions of these drugs that are totally unknown so no one has a clue if they are psychoactive or not, meaning that they have an impact on your psychological state, altering your consciousness, said the PhD candidate in the Department of Psychiatry at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

No one really knows, because theyre super novel. So, thered be no research out there that you could pull from to get indication as to what theyre going to do to people.

Its entirely what Im referring to now is a sort of naturalistic experiment thats conducted on the Irish general public.

He said Ireland shouldnt allow the retail distribution of cannabis products that are entirely unknown.

I think that the monitoring of the sale of these products should be ongoing, and anything thats new shouldnt be necessarily illegal, I just dont think it should be able to be sold until its proven safe.

We should have an attitude of guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around.

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