THE government is to introduce new measures that will attempt to put alternative lifestyle shops, which sell a range of "legal highs", out of business permanently.

The Sunday Tribune has learned that a potentially crippling public liability insurance is to be made mandatory for all so-called "head shops", which sell a variety of legal party drugs.

There are about 20 'head shops' around the country. Government has been advised that public-liability insurance for them would be extremely high, as anyone who has a bad experience with a substance could sue for damages.

The government also intends to make it mandatory for all alternative-lifestyle shops to display all the ingredients of all the substances they sell, so that people know what they are buying. This would also give gardaí the power to raid these shops and seize items that are not correctly labelled.

These decisions have been made by officials from the department of health; the minister with responsibility for drugs strategy, John Curran; the Attorney General's office and detectives from the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU).

The popularity and range of legal drugs at these shops have rapidly increased in the past 12 months. The owners of these shops say they sell safe substances and the government should engage with them in dialogue rather than trying to put them out of business. But the government has been under sustained pressure to deal with the proliferation of these shops for several years.

"The spread of these shops is a concern. We intend to do everything possible to try and find alternative ways of putting them out of business," said a government source.