Legal high on sale at many Wanganui dairies

Sales of synthetic cannabis are happening all over the city, and have started to cause trouble for police. The Chronicle visited dairies in the city and found most of them sold various brands of the substance, including Kronic, which contain cannabinoids
Most dairy owners say they are selling synthetic cannabis on a regular basis, but not in large amounts.
Among those visited, Durie Hill, Eastside and the St John's Hill Four Square said they chose not to stock the products.
Al Muller, owner of the Avenue Tobacconist, said he sold more of another brand, Amsterdam Cafe, than he did of Kronic.
Business was steady.
It was mostly young people, males and females aged 20-25, who bought the R18 product, he said.
"I don't really know if it's good ... It's no good when people start to rely on such things. If we don't sell it, someone else will."
In Aramoho, the owner of the Westlea Dairy, Leo Xu, said they started stocking the product after people asked for it.
While sales had remained slow, he had noticed stockists for cannabinoid products had increased from one to three in recent times.
"It's not really popular in this area, people don't really like it, but occasionally, on weekends, some young guys buy it," he said.
Customers had told him that at $20 for a 1.25g pack, it was more expensive than real marijuana.
Mr Xu said he didn't think fake cannabis was the problem - alcohol was. His shop got a lot of trouble from people who were drunk, and for about the same price paid for synthetic cannabis, he thought two or three guys could get drunk.
A staff member at the Alma Rd Dairy, in Gonville, said they mostly sold their product to men in the 30-40-year age group rather than young people.
The amount they sold ranged from $200-$500 worth, but some products were $40 each, he said.
He said fake cannabis was a good product and better than party pills containing the now-banned substance BZP.
A staff member at the Duncan St Dairy in Wanganui East said their stock was slow to sell, and was also bought primarily by older people.
He thought the price of the product was probably the reason for this.
Rangiora St Dairy owner James Chen said Kronic was popular on a Friday or Saturday night, when young people aged between 20-30 came in to buy it.
Most of them had been drinking when they came in, he said.
The Dublin St Dairy also stocked Kronic and it was usually bought by males, a staff member said.
Whanganui Police Senior Sergeant Lance Kennedy said police were aware that Kronic was for sale in Wanganui and they had encountered at least one person who was causing problems while under its influence.
They had received multiple calls for one particular teenage boy, who seemed to "lose self control" in a manner similar to the way people did when using other drugs, he said.
The incidents were damage and assault-related.
The American creator of Kronic has warned users to stop using the drug because of serious psychological problems associated with it, but did not recommend banning it.
Emeritus Professor John Huffman, of South Carolina, told the Otago Daily Times that its use could lead to serious psychological problems and it was not known if they were irreversible.
Prof Huffman, an organic chemist at Clemson University, developed the compound stimulant JWH 018 - a chemical that mimicked the effect of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. The compound had been adapted to make cannabinoids.
Reclassifying or banning it in New Zealand would "probably be useless, as marijuana has been illegal in the United States since 1937," he said.
This month the Government announced that legislation to make synthetic cannabis a restricted substance had been fast-tracked and was expected to come into effect by mid-August.