PHOTO:
ISTOCKPHOTO, JOHN PRESCOTT PHOTO: XXXX
EDUCATION STUDENT VIEW
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s of 3pm on 16 April 2010, mephedrone has been an illegal, Class B drug. Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, warned of an
immediate crackdown on dealers and claimed, “Its classification will provide reassurance.” This much is true. There was total confusion surrounding the drug and because of this lacuna, misinformation surrounded it in the tabloids, while at the same time members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs were resigning, seemingly by the day. Although the long-term effects, safe dosage and experience of the drug itself were uncertainties, it became a tabloid and social phenomenon. The drug is supposed to be a fusion of ecstasy and cocaine and is either ingested or dissolved in a drink. The highs are often exaggerated and the lows understated. This led to a plethora of new users, some as young as 12. Much like cocaine, the effects last for around an hour and then, very sharply, wear off. The difference between being intoxicated and not is stark, swift and sometimes scary. One of the main catalysts in mephedrone’s rise to prominence was its
M-Cat is in the bag but what’s next?
Mephedrone may have been declared illegal, but what about the next one? Student Maximilian Trotter calls for new policies to protect young people from drugs
the social cause of this problem rather than outlawing it and subsequently punishing users. One of the real winners from the prohibition of mephedrone are the street drug dealers. Banning the substance means there will be an increase in price (reportedly to around £35 per 1g) and it also leads to a decrease in purity. This means that not only will people be getting a potentially fatal concoction but also, due to the price hike, there will be an inevitable increase in crime in order to fund the habit. There is the argument that the people who
“We need to adopt a
system such as the one in New Zealand, where whenever a new drug
comes onto the scene it is immediately placed in a Class D category”
ease of access under the legal banner. There was an implicit suggestion that because the drug was legal, it was both safe and acceptable. In order to get hold of mephedrone, there was no walking down back alleys to meet dealers; it was delivered directly to your door. If you went on the internet and entered ‘mephedrone’ or any of its derivatives into a search engine, it produced a series of web addresses where you could buy the substance as cheaply as £5 for 1g (cocaine sells for around £50 per 1g). It soon caught on with students, with some buying copious amounts and then selling it. People who would not normally have the connections, audacity or finance to be involved in the drug world, would buy mephedrone online for £5 and then sell it for £15 to friends or at parties. These pseudo-dealers earned easy money buying (for example) 50g via the internet and making a profit of close to £350. There was a ready supply flowing around universities and colleges. Mephedrone did not have the stigma that illegal drugs had, and this sat
at the root of its popularity. Outlawing it will certainly lead to less users, but does it really address the larger problem? Drug classifications will never be able to keep up with chemical creativity. We therefore need to address
WWW.FIRSTELEVENMAGAZINE.CO.UK
persist in pursuing mephedrone deserve their comeuppance, but this is a very complex issue. There is a perception that drugs always affect someone else. When parents are mentoring their children in how to cross the road or not talk to strangers, drugs invariably are not mentioned. It is a taboo. As the aforementioned mephedrone’s popularity came from not having the illegal drug stigma attached to it, an issue that parents thought would not come into their lives was suddenly very prominent in it. This is why there was such a public outcry.
It is estimated that the legislation against mephedrone will lead to a 50
per cent decrease in its usage. Many children who would not have touched drugs before will have come into contact with it, and this outlawing will act as a deterrent to the majority of them. Although the legislation pandered to tabloid newspaper editors, it does not address the legal drug loophole which allows harmful substances to become available to children before an outcry forces those substances onto the legal radar. Before mephedrone, Salvia, Spice and BZP were indulged as legal drugs and were subsequently given illegal status. What’s next? NRG-1 has found another gap in our legal framework and will apparently be on these shores sooner rather than later. We need to adopt a system such as the one in New Zealand, where
whenever a new legal drug comes onto the scene it is immediately placed in a Class D category. This means that only people over the age of 18 can purchase it. The drug is kept out of the hands of children and takes any initiative away from illegal street dealers by providing a controlled environment. This hands power to society: it can limit sales and collect data on usage. We currently have an ambivalent solution in the UK where there is temporary satisfaction, partly due to media influence, but there is a very real problem that still needs to be addressed. %
SUMMER 2010 FIRST ELEVEN 23
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