I'm guessing it's going to be a very VERY long time ...

It looks like drug hysteria has well and truly taken over the UK media as seems to happen quite regularly in this country. As a general election is just around the corner the hysteria coming from them is particularly exaggerated as they have to be seen to be "getting tough on crime" and there is no better way to do this than to aim your sites as drugs. Two members of the ACMD have now resigned because they were not even given the opportunity to debate the issue before the government went public with their decision!

As far as I know there is no scientific evidence that links mephedrone to the deaths that everyone is shouting about or any other deaths that the media seems to have linked to its use. If the government has said they were banning it because it appears to be very psychologically addictive in a significant number of users, I would have had a bit more time for their reasoning. Certainly, the research I did online into the experience of using it did appear to point towards it having a reputation of being "moorish". I've not seen any such reputation developing around any psychedelics.

I tried it a few months ago to see what all the fuss is about and its effects were negligible. I took .5g and the "peak" lasted about 10 minutes. Some people claim it to be as good as MDMA. All I will say is they must have had some pretty crap MDMA then.

W

Anyone else think it's odd that they put it in class B?

When you look at how many deaths it has been linked with and its addiction/abuse potential, it's quite strange that it ranked lower than many less harmful substances that got shoved in the A category.

It seems to me that not only is their legislative reasoning shambolic, but they don't actually have a good method to categorise the substances they've illegalised.

I don't get it.

The categories are next to meaningless; I've never been able to see the rationale behind them. Mephedrone is seen as a stimulant so they're going to stick it in the same category as amphetamines, but cannabis is also a Class B - so how does that work?

Unfortunately restructuring drug policy is such a political hot potato that until someone grows some balls and puts their political weight behind changing things we're stuck with the silly categories we've got.

W

agreed - the categorisation is all over the place. The independent drugs body that everyone is resigning from have a graph, based on actual research that measures substances according to dependency and toxicity. But of course, the govt ignores it; because said graph shows the madness of the legislative structure.

It is precisely this graph that caused prof David Nutt to be forced out - it showed quite clearly that alcohol and nicotine were far more dangerous in terms of both addictiveness and as a health risk than ecstasy or cannabis. That was what he said, and that's why he was pushed out by the government.

UK drugs policy and legislation is an utter shambles. DMT shouldn't even be categorised - it is neither addictive nor, as far as we know, toxic or harmful. Cigarettes on the other hand should be up there with heroin - highly addictive, and the cause of more deaths than any other drug in existence. So it's a complete nonsense.

But the government don't base law on this very sensible approach; they choose instead to decide on categorisation on the basis of how loudly the tabloids scream.

It, as our American friends would say, sucks.

interesting from The Guardian

a little more rationality

^^Good article.

Mephedrone is without a doubt dangerous stuff, there's simply nothing known about its impact on the human organism and long term side effects.

However I think people should be careful about pointing the finger of blame solely at mephedrone for recent deaths...these people all seem to have mixed substances, with possibly very dangerous reactions, and some of which for all we know, could be creating new, unknown toxic byproducts (like the reaction of cocaine and alcohol together forming even nastier cocoaethylene), and people have died also seem to fiend it in massive doses or over a long time.

I've used it a few times, and won't be doing so again. We are all individuals and react differently to things, but I personally found the buzz very social, chatty and warm, if short lived, and I tended to sober up once the effects wore off...nothing like the feeling of coming down from an ecstasy/MDMA high...I HATE that empty feeling, and a few hours of fun is not worth that feeling for me anymore. On the 'fiending it' front...I agree and disagree. When I started to use it, there would be temptation to redose, after a few times, myself and friends learned not to, it didn't enhance the experience at all, and I would simply not be interested in doing so, even when offered it freely.

It won't be the end of the 'legal highs' saga however...some other legal and possibly nastier chemicals like MDPV are ready to fill the void (much more potent, much longer lasting, more addictive, with serious long-term side effects hangover effects compared to mephedrone). There is some other chemical labs in China have started to produce apparently even nastier naphyrone...may be very much more dangerous, with a serious chance of neurotoxicity brain damage. Brings to mind thoughts of 'drug terrorism' in a sense, for anyone who has read/seen 'A Scanner Darkly'.