Britain Safe for 48 hours

Following bold action by Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, the young people of England, Scotland, Wales and part of Ireland were safe for 48 hours this weekend.  Johnson in the early hours of Friday morning banned the drug Mephedrone following advice from the AMCD that they hadn't got a clue.

Websites that sold so called "legal highs" are temporarily closed as they stock up with a new product range

Hot tip is 5,6-Methylenedioxy-2-aminoindane normally referred to as MDAI which is very similar to ecstasy.

A quick internet search shows a growing wholesale market

Is it safer or more harmful than Mephedrone?  Is it safer or more dangerous than alcohol? 

Who knows?  Certainly the Government has no intention in providing good quality scientific advice.  Instead they will after a few months of soundbites end up banning it and giving us a 48 hour break before the next "legal high" hits the online retailers.

Meanwhile what is the bet this new product will be heavily promoted by media condemnation over the coming weeks?

Alcohol Kills but Meow Meow makes headlines

On the day before Mephedrone was made illegal I received a circular e-mail from the University's very own police office one PC Matt Holloway

For the information of all staff and students.


From 00:01 am on Friday 16th April 2010, Mephedrone (aka Meow Meow, Bubble and Mcat) and more than 10 other very similar drugs become controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act to a Class B drug.

There is no "amnesty" period and anyone found in possession of the drug will be dealt with in exactly the same way as they would be for other Class B drugs such as Amphetamine (which Mephedrone is closely related to).

This brings penalties of up to 5 years imprisonment for possession and 14 years imprisonment for supplying or possession with intent to supply the drug.

Mephedrone is a very dangerous drug and has had a lot of media attention over the last few months but there are other very similar drugs in the same chemical group that are also used regularly and they too have been controlled under this legislation. The most common of these are Methylone, Methedrone and MDPV.

If you have any questions in relation to this then please contact the UWE beat manager PC Matt Holloway in Room 1E20. His contact details are found via the Police web page - Bristol UWE - Operations and Security

One phrase stuck out

Mephedrone is a very dangerous drug and has had a lot of media attention over the last few months

So I thought I would research PC Holloway's claims.   So I had a look at the latest edition of the Lancet which had an article on the ban.  It stated that:

the ACMD report, Consideration of the cathinones, which recommended the ban, documented the very scanty evidence on mephedrone, including the absence of a direct causal link between the reported deaths and the drug. ... There was little time to consider carefully the scientific evidence on mephedrone. The ACMD did not have sufficient evidence to judge the harms caused by this drug class.

 So on the one hand we have PC Holloway claiming that it 'is a very dangerous drug' and on the other the Lancet claiming that there is not 'sufficient evidence to judge the harms '.  Which one should I believe on this medical and scientific issue?

But PC Holloway is correct about the media moral panic coverage and we see a classic example of this today in the Daily Mail

The headline could not be clearer - someone died after taking meow meow.  However on reading
the article I find right at the bottom this paragraph

The Inquest heard that although meow meow and Valium were found in Miss Main's blood, it was a combination of alcohol and GHB which killed her.

So despite the headline it was not mephedrone but alcohol and GBH which contributed to her death. This is not an unimportant fact in the debate over mephedrone as it is likely that many users who are put off by it being made illegal will instead use alcohol. A drug with a very proven track record of harm and death. This displacement may end up causing more harm including more deaths. But does PC Holloway warn the staff and students of UWE of this killer drug?

It is a silence often shared by politicians and the media

See also - Daily Telegraph Moral Panic Journalism and Mephedrone Pushing

Daily Telegraph Moral Panic Journalism and Mephedrone Pushing

On the 17th March Daily Telegraph hack Heidi Blake wrote about Mephedrone and the dangers it presented; which she claimed, following the Telegraph editorial line required an immediate ban. Her article went under the headline Mephedrone: the truth about 'miaow miaow' In the article Blake claimed that:

In November Gabrielle Price, 14, of Worthing West Sussex, died after allegedly taking the drug.

What Blake didn't say was that in December, less than a month after Gabrielle's tragic death Sussex police announced that following toxicology tests:

It has now been established that death resulted from cardiac arrest following broncho-pneumonia which resulted from a streptococcal A infection.

As it was clear that Gabrielle's death was from natural causes, and had nothing whatsoever to do with Mephedrone or any other drug, there was no need for a full inquest.

I therefore saw a certain irony when my attention was drawn to th screen shot below posted on the web by badjournalism. It shows a search for stories on mephedrone on the Daily Telegraph website. As well as these stories the viewer is also directed to a number of suppliers of the drug. These are paid adverts provided by google. So although the Telegraph demands an immediate ban in the meantime they are happy to earn their referral fees from the pushers.

As you can see Heidi Blake story is shown up by the search which looks like it was done on the following day, March 18th.

The Telegraph has subsquently run a story revealing the Government's tax revenue from the plant food/ drug was £584,303.  How could they make money off the pedling of this evil? A case of throwing stones in a glasshouse methinks.

Hattip badjournalism

Mephedrone & Glue - A tale of two drugs

Mephedrone, plant food and occasional drug is to be banned by Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, on the advice of the Committee of Scientists who are prepared to give politically acceptable advice (AMCD).  This follows reports that Mephedrone may have been related to a number of its users deaths which have whipped up a moral panic with the media demanding action. There have been exceptions to this reporting most notably Edmund Conway in the Daily Telegraph whose article What economics teaches us about drugs  is well worth a read.

The number of deaths attributed to Mephedrone has been estimated as up to 25. None of these are confirmed and it could be that it turns out that none of the deaths were actually caused by the abuse of plant food. However compare this with glue and other solvents. We can still go to any major DIY retailer, supermarket, or even the average corner shop and buy this product. But glue has a number of uses one of which is as a 'legal high'. It does indeed but the only coverage of the alleged 60 deaths a year I can find is on CBBC and that is from 2003!. 

Glue and other solvents of course remains legal. As do the drugs which kill the most: Alcohol and Tobacco.

Hat tip to Mills for the idea and research.
Hat tips to Syncronium for picture - Link to Mephedrone article on that site here