Last week’s ban on a few legal highs will certainly do more to harm the public than keeping them legal. Here are 10 ways in which every sensible legal highs user has just been shafted:

#1 – Don’t associate with dodgy people

Selling legal highs can be done by a legitimate business. Since these businesses aren’t breaking the law, engaging in any other kind of illegal behaviour (guns, violence, money laundering, etc) is a massive risk. People that deal illegal drugs are already breaking the law – if they get caught, they’re going to prison for a long time. Breaking the law a second time is no longer such a big deal, especially if the price is right. Not only do you get the safety of dealing with an organisation that doesn’t want to break the law, but you’re also not seen with any dodgy characters, whether that’s meeting up on a street corner, visiting their house or them turning up at your place at a suspicious frequency.

#2 – Comparison Shopping

We all live in hope that one day we could type in RateMyWeedDealer.com, find the best prices in town and arrange for a delivery. Fortunately, as customers of legitimate products, legal highs fans can shop around to their heart’s content. Selling something for more than you should be? Then no one will buy it! It’s as simple as that, so, not only can customers get a better deal by shopping around, this behaviour also encourages healthy competition between legal highs vendors. Another plus for the customer!

#3 – Buyer Protection

Perhaps RateMyWeedDealer.com is a long way off, but what about just ringing your dealer to complain about something? Inadequate packaging? Does the product weigh half as much as you were promised? Unfortunately, I doubt your dealer gives a shit. Luckily, for legal highs consumers, most sites out there have some form of customer service, and if they can’t resolve things, facilities for refunds or chargebacks exist to protect the customer.

#4 – A Strength For Everyone

The sheer number of similar products available mean there is usually a strength for every occasion. Want a bit of an energy boost for work? Caffeine! Want to go to a rave all night? Synthetics! Want to go to a rave but it’s not going to be a “big one” because you’ve got work in the morning, and, let’s face it, your joints and muscles aren’t what they used to be? Something herbal!

I think asking an illegal drug dealer for something cheaper and less effective would be a world first.

#5 – Diversity

Not only is there a range in price and strength, there’s also an incredible range of effects available. Clear headed stimulation, total euphoria, intense rushes, powerful relaxants, shit that makes you laugh – whatever you want, there’s probably something available somewhere that will do the trick. In the world of illegal drugs, that kind of product diversity could only be maintained via a database of epic proportions containing your millions of “hookups” and your own data entry guy.

#6 – Passing A Drug Test

Some people might thing it’s unfair that their co-workers can party all night on a litre of vodka, sleep for a few hours in a bathtub alongside their own sick and eventually drive to work still pissed, while they get fired for smoking a bit of weed after work. Sure, people should get fired if they let their abuse of any substance interfere with their work, but some people may feel that what they get up to in their own time is their own business. These people may feel drug tests are massive breach of their privacy, so it’s a good job that they have a legal alternative to turn to, since they shouldn’t show up on drug tests.

#7 – Friends More Likely To Do The Right Thing

People that overdose on illegal drugs will sometimes go without the treatment they need to avoid any legal trouble for themselves or their friends. Perhaps a friend might not tell the doctor what someone else has taken for fear of getting their mate into trouble. With legal highs, there’s no risk of prosecution so a) people can fully disclose what they’ve taken and could even present the doc with the original packaging and b) the quantity of chemicals in pills or powders will be consistent between batches…

#8 – Batch Consistency

Not only can doctors share notes on specific products, but users can too. It’s no good trying to compare ecstasy pills from different ends of the country, since the contents are likely to vary wildly, even if they share the same stamp. With legal highs, that’s a different story. Consistency between brands and batches facilitates a great deal of discussion not only on how good they are, but also harm reduction. Occasionally manufacturers do change their ingredients, but it only takes a short while for the changes to reach the entire country.

#9 – The Government Could Learn A Thing Or Two

Straight away, the fact that the legal highs industry even exists tells us that people want to get high and that people think the current drug laws are stupid. There’s one massive lesson that could be learned from it though – why not use it as a model for eventually legalising cannabis and the rest? Instead of trying to ban every new substance before anyone has died, why not look at regulating their sales with similar legislation to alcohol and tobacco? If we as a country could get this right with legal highs, we could see if it works or not and them maybe think of abolishing our current bullshit excuse for a drugs law.

#10 – Taxes

Here’s a list of taxes that illegal drug dealers don’t pay:

• Personal Income Tax
• National Insurance
• Corporation Tax
• VAT

If legal highs remained legal and were taxed like alcohol and tobacco, the government would even more money on top of the taxes above that they already receive. These products are relatively harmless compared with alcohol, for example, which hospitalises 1200 people a day and costs the NHS at least £2 billion to deal with, so a tax on them wouldn’t be paying for the damage they’d cause to society – they’d be making the government a massive profit to spend on more doctors, nurses, medical research and fucking moats!

Nice one, G’ Brown!

Apart from the exponentially expanding list of slang names for mephedrone, there have been a couple of interesting new developments everyone should be aware of.

#1 – Gabrielle Price Died From Bronchopneumonia

Gabi has featured in pretty much every mephedrone-related news story these past few weeks, since she died at a party after consuming mephedrone and ketamine (and probably alcohol as well, although alcohol is so ingrained into our society it wouldn’t occur to anyone to report it). It turns out that Gabi actually died from bronchopneumonia following a group A streptococcal infection. Don’t get me wrong, this is nothing to be cheery about – a teenager still died. I’m just reporting this here because nowhere else will report it, since it’s no longer a story. Actually, if you read about another mephedrone article that mentions this girl, do everyone a favour and leave a link to this blog post in their comments.

This also doesn’t mean mephedrone is safer than we thought. Being on any drug isn’t a good idea if you also have a potentially fatal illness, never mind a cocktail of drugs in a party environment.

#2 – No One Ripped Their Balls Off

This is another piece of bullshit whipped out by the media at every opportunity: apparently, some young gentleman thought he saw centipedes crawling about his person and tore his balls off in (a totally proportionate) response. Turns out, this probably didn’t happen, since the “facts” were obtained from unsubstantiated reports on poor quality forums and chat rooms. Well done, the media!

#3 – West Yorkshire Police Have No Idea What The Fuck They’re Talking About

Here’s what they had to say following a poster launch designed to raise awareness.

“MCAT is a substance which is currently legal, however; it is predominately used for plants and can have quite an adverse effect if consumed by a human.

“We know that this substance is often used by young people, particularly between the ages of 14 to 25. These posters are therefore designed to reach this particular generation and help them to make an informed decision.

“Police and partners in Kirklees will be placing them in various locations frequented by young people and hopefully they will take in the message.

“MCAT is often referred to as a ‘legal high’ and gives the impression that because it’s legal, it is safe. There are number of substances, which are not controlled drugs or illegal which can be abused. We would always advise against ingesting anything into your body which is not for a bone fide medical reason. MCAT in particular has the potential to damage both mental and physical health.

Their first mistake might be hard to spot, but MCAT means “methcathinone” which is NOT mephedrone (4-MMCAT). Their second mistake needs no more explaination or emphasis than a simple emboldening of their own words.

Unbelievable.

ITV’s Central News decided to do an “investigation” into legal highs, and after reading about us in The Observer, they thought they should probably talk to us. While you do get to see an excellent close-up of my untrimmed beard, Jo (the misses) is the star of the show:

Other than Jo’s point, the rest is pretty rubbish, including the terrible audio quality – sorry about that! We totally expected it would be a negative piece overall, but someone has to stick up for the industry though, right?

This is also one more thing for the CV – our own Mellow Yellow has been on telly!

I don’t know how much people outside “the industry” have heard about mephedrone, but by all accounts, it’s exploded in popularity over the past few months. In the last three months, there’s been at least 50 news stories reposted to Drugs-Forum on the topic, and probably quite a few more that haven’t been picked up. We’ve got reports of teens dying, 11 year olds taking the stuff and a guy ripping his balls off – all the classic examples of the media whipping up an unnecessary (and untrue) shit storm. I’ve also read lots of anecdotes about the drug’s prevalence among students, friendship groups and even dealers of illegal drugs (points for diversification!). Since my articles on JWH-018 have been reasonably popular and stimulated some interesting discussion, I felt it was about time we gave mephedrone the same treatment.

The Basics

Mephedrone is not only cheap and legal, but it’s also incredibly effective. It’s a short-acting stimulant that feels something like a mixture of cocaine and ecstasy. If that wasn’t enough to explain its popularity, then the icing on the cake is the almost complete lack of a comedown the next day when used in moderation. Purities of over 99% make another great selling point when compared with similar illegal drugs.

Mephedrone is a white, crystalline powder with little to no smell. The term “Mephedrone” comes from methyl-ephedrone, describing the chemical structure.  Other names for it include:

• 4-MethylMethCathinone (methcathinone is another name for ephedrone)
• 4-MMC
• 4-MMCAT
  
• MCAT (This is incorrect, but people use it anyway)
• Meow
• Bubbles (seems to be a brand name for capsules containing it and methylone, another research chemical)

Effects include an initial euphoria, which tapers off to a milder stimulation. Mephedrone does seem to oil social situations rather well and get everyone talking, laughing and having a good time, especially during the initial euphoria. Several users have compared it to cocaine, but some how less jittery and “arrogant”, while others will compare it to a more rushy ecstasy (which has to be a good thing, given the current state of the MDMA market). Actually, the effects seem to depend very much on dose and your chosen route of administration.

The most common ways to get this stuff into your blood are snorting it and eating it. As you can probably imagine, eating it will give a longer, less intense experience, while doing lines of it will give a much shorter, more intense buzz and make you want to keep taking it, but we’ll get to that later. Oh, I should probably mention that snorting it feels not too dissimilar from being raped in the sinuses by a Portuguese Man o’ War, particularly for your first line.

Other reported methods of administration include shoving it up your arse, requiring less than an oral dose and peaking somewhere between an oral or insufflated dose, and intravenously injecting it, which apparently isn’t that great, having a similar effect profile to being snorted with a million times the risk.

Dosage

A single oral dose would typically be between 150 mg and 300 mg, while lines can range from 50 mg to a monster 150 mg rail.

Pharmacology

If only we knew! Unfortunately, no one knows anything for certain, so we’re forced to do a bit of guesswork. If it feels like a cross between MDMA and cocaine, then we can assume that there’s some serotonin and dopamine involvement. The apparent addictiveness of mephedrone (more on that later, srsly), along with talkativeness also points to dopamine pathways, while the similarity of some side effects compared with serotonin depletion (taking too much MDMA or abruptly discontinuing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors [SSRIs]) points to the serotonin pathways.

I would love some more information on this, so if you ever come across anything in the future, please report back!

Misconceptions

There are a number of misconceptions surrounding mephedrone, which we should clear up:

Legal does not mean safe

While it seems that users can take vast quantities of the stuff and still function,  we don’t know what the long term effects of mephedrone use will entail. A handful of people have died from taking it too. While the number is tiny compared with alcohol, it’s still always a good thing to remember.

Purity isn’t necessarily accurate

Mephedrone bought online will certainly be purer than illegal drugs bought on the street, but claims of 99.9% purity may not be true. Since it’s not sold for human consumption (like everything legal and fun), I’m not sure an accurate purity measure is required. Also, that 0.01% could be some deadly poison. It probably won’t be, but it might!

“Plant Food” might not be mephedrone

Lots of those news stories I’ve mentioned above have listed a million different “street names” for this drug, including “Plant Food”. No one is actually calling it plant food, it’s just how it, and lots of other compounds like it, are sold. If you’ve obtained anything psychoactive packaged as plant food, make sure you know what the hell it is you’re taking!

Side Effects

Side effects can be many and varied, some serious and some not. Mephedrone shares a number of the typical side effects you’d expect to find with any stimulant, such as:

• Increased heart rate (tachycardia)
• Raised blood pressure (hypertension)
• Not wanting to sleep (insomnia)
• Not wanting to eat (anorexia)
• Chewing/grinding teeth (bruxism)
• Moving your eyes loads (nystagmus)

More mephedrone-specific, and so perhaps more serious side effects include

• Turning blue at the extremities & feeling cold (vasoconstriction)
• Pains in the chest, throat and nose
• Nosebleeds when snorted, especially with prolonged or frequent use

The more you use, the more the side effects become apparent and the initial pleasant effects diminish. Also, significant evidence is coming forward suggesting circulation issues are not just vasoconstriction, but something more serious – autoimmune vasculitis, where the immune system attacks your own body. This would seem to account for some of the odd and infrequent side effects, such as bruising or turning blue at the joints. Current reports suggest that this isn’t an issue of a dodgy supply for some people compared with the rest, but rather a small percentage of the population are at risk, probably because of some genetic differences. If you’ve noticed this, stop taking mephedrone! This condition will only get worse the more you consume. Add to that the usual stimulant-induced vasoconstriction, and you could find yourself with some serious problems.

Warning

Mephedrone can be addictive!

• It’s easy to have several large sessions per week because of the cheapness and lack of comedown. Several people have reported taking over 20g per month.
• It’s easy to keep taking it, especially when snorted, so a single line can turn into 5g session easily if you lack self control. There have been a few reports of people taking 5-7g over a 48 hour long single session.
• Tolerance can also develop, so more is required for the same effect.

Safe Usage Tips

Mephedrone is not 100% safe, but then again, nothing is. To make sure you’re as safe as possible, here are a few tips:

• Don’t buy it in bulk – 80% of people won’t be able to resist the charms of a massive bag of the stuff. Sure, you may save a few quid on the gram, but if your consumption sky-rockets, you’re not saving anything.
• If you do buy in bulk, limit yourself – it’s all too easy to “just have one more line”, so perhaps let your friend look after your supply for you, or if you’re going out, take a predetermined quantity out with you and stick to it.
• Don’t snort it if you think there’s any chance you will become addicted to it – this route of administration makes you want to keep on taking it much more than an oral dose, despite the snotty nose and watering eyes.
• Eat healthily before and after – your body needs a good supply of nutrients, vitamins, etc to stay healthy and replenish your neurotransmitters. Forcing yourself to eat, especially during long binges, is essential. At least munch some vitamin tablets or something.
• Take some magnesium supplements – this helps relax your muscles and stop all the jaw clenching and chewing that goes with most stimulants.
• If you’re going to snort it, blow your nose soon after to clear out any powder – drugs aren’t  absorbed from your nostrils, so you want to get rid of it. I’d also suggest giving your nose a wash with either a spray bottle and some water, or by cramming some wet tissue up there with your head tilted back.