Yep!

Last Thursday at 9pm, a programme being shown on BBC3 called “Can I get High Legally?” caught my interest. Not having a TV ourselves, we patiently waited for it to become available on iPlayer whilst the orders poured in – a massive amount, far more than usual. Something in the programme had obviously made legal highs seem pretty appealing. Or had it?

Our orders per day. Guess when the documentary was on.

George Lamb was presenting, which made me wary from the outset. What can this uber-trendy, slightly poncy metrosexual reminiscent of other Camden boys like Noel Fielding and Russell Brand have to say about the science and safety of legal highs? Well, as it turns out, nothing. The description of the programme on the BBC website claims that “George Lamb dives into the world of legal highs, meeting users and sellers, finding out why they are legal and if this means they can also be called safe”. In actual fact, the programme consisted mainly of Lamby boy wandering round Camden (where else?) looking shocked. You can buy legal highs in shops? There’s proper websites selling them? It all actually looks professional? That’s because they’re legal, idiot. We’ve already established that. Unless he feels that the purpose of the programme was to answer the question in the title, which seems pretty pointless – “Can I get high legally?” – well yes, of course you can.

This brings me on to my first major issue with the programme (and believe me, there were many, but I’ll only rant about a select few here); where were the mentions of alcohol and tobacco? They literally did not get mentioned once, which I think is pretty appalling. Holy shit George, did you know you can just wander in off the street and buy a pint? And there’s proper shops selling it? Regardless of one’s opinion about the “differences” between drugs and alcohol, it is a mind altering substance that you can buy legally and with minimal restrictions, just like the legal highs George Lamb is horrified to see available, displayed in attractive ways and with nice pictures on the packets to entice customers. What about the Martini advert with George Clooney and all the sexy women? Why is that different? What about all the casual references equating getting drunk with having a good time in popular media? Why is all of that OK, in fact so OK that it doesn’t even get a mention? People just do not see that intoxication is intoxication, and if one kind is acceptable then we need to think about why. George Lamb voices his concerns throughout the programme that legal highs are so dangerous precisely because they’re legal – because that means everyone thinks they’re safe and isn’t careful enough. I think that is a valid point, but where it applies most strongly is with alcohol and tobacco, substances that most people don’t even consider to be “drugs”. How many deaths are there per year from legal highs, George, compared to alcohol and tobacco?

These are the kinds of questions he should have been answering, which brings me onto my second point. It’s hard to pin down, but there was just a general lack of substance. Where were the statistics, the graphs, the interviews lasting more than 20 seconds, the facts? This programme, these questions, had such potential, but it just wasn’t in depth enough. He doesn’t ask the right questions, he misunderstands or misrepresents (or both) the points made by the experts and he whizzes through the whole thing not really covering anything. They set up a night out, for example, where a group of three students were to take some legal highs and record their experiences throughout the night. What we in fact got was three sweaty faced goons grinning into the camera, edited with some generic “rave” footage. What did they take? Pretty basic question. How much did they take? Were they drinking alcohol? How long after ingestion was the footage filmed? Why didn’t the BBC choose to show more than 3 or 4 seconds of footage at a time so that we could actually get a look at them – were they sweating, slurring, delirious? We didn’t get the answer to any of these questions and considering that this was presented as a case study of people taking legal highs, I think it’s pretty shocking journalism. But perhaps I’m being unfair – we did learn during a meeting with Lamby in a greasy spoon the next day that they felt a bit rough. Well big woop.

Another massive misrepresentation was the case study involving Guernsey. Guernsey, for those of you who don’t know, is mega strict on illegal drugs. This legislation has obviously been highly successful as they now have a massive problem with legal highs, as the teenagers and young adults (because it is mostly them) can’t get hold of the real stuff. George Lamb didn’t quite seem to be able to make his mind up here – whilst he explains how unusual the situation is there and seems pretty sure that it’s because of the super tough drug laws, he then questions teenagers on the street and expects us to be shocked that they’ve all tried legal highs. Of course they’ve all tried legal highs, they all take them there, that’s the whole point and why you went Guernsey! It’s not representational of the population at large so I really didn’t get the point of this section at all. His condescending attitude towards users of legal highs also really pissed me off. He got down with the kids and joined them in their car whilst they smoked some kind of legal smoking mix (probably Spice) from their hand-crafted Coke bottle bong (we’ve all been there) and questioned them about the safety of what they were doing. When they replied that they were aware that it was risky, he was incredulous – fancy knowing that something you’re doing is risky and doing it anyway, how stupid, right? Right? Well, no. Unless Lamby boy’s never crossed the road, got in a car, lit up a fag or basically done anything ever, he’s being a total hypocrite. As it turns out, he actually admits to having taken cocaine and ecstasy during the program, making his hypocrisy even more apparent. Being aware of the risks of something and doing it anyway doesn’t make you an idiot, it means you’ve considered the risks and decided they’re minimal, or at least minimal compared to the benefits. Yes, an aeroplane might crash, but you want to go on holiday, and it’ll probably be fine. People make these kind of decisions every day.

Another aspect of the programme boasted about in the description is that Lamb talks to “sellers”. Well, he actually talks to one, and he was a complete arsehole about it. He wanders into shops and rings people up wanting to talk to them on camera right now, and then treats it as some kind of admission of wrong-doing when they say no. Finally, Chris from Potseeds.co.uk, a friend of ours, agrees to talk to him and George is off to Potseeds HQ in Totnes. The way it is edited makes Chris look like a lone man who sells drugs out of a shed, rather than the manager of a busy, successful and completely above board business, and Lamb’s tone is mocking throughout. He picks up packets off the shelves, laughing at their funny names, in a scene akin to a crap drugs education lesson at school where you’re warned off drugs as “only dopes smoke dope”. The worst bit though is when Lamb chooses to assess what Chris has said in the voiceover, recorded after he’s left Totnes, rather than addressing his criticisms to him when he has a chance to reply. Chris hesitated, we are told, which obviously makes him a bastard and a liar and a downright horrible human being (or words to that effect). Or, it just makes him a normal man who isn’t trained for TV, who knows every single syllable he utters will be analysed to death and used against himself and the entire legal highs industry.

The final bit of the programme that really got my goat actually had the potential to be very interesting. Lamb goes to speak to an actual scientist (just one though – toxicologist Dr. John Ramsey from St George’s College at the University of London) about legal highs and he is told that MDMA is probably safer than many legal highs as it’s been around for such a long time we know how to deal with it. Well, I totally agree – pure, pharmaceutical-grade MDMA is almost definitely safer than legal highs. In fact, it’s one of the safest drugs around, so saying that it’s safer than legal highs is kind of a non point – it’s also safer than alcohol. But, more importantly, pure, pharmaceutical-grade MDMA is not what we should be talking about here – it’s not what is available in clubs or pubs or whatever to the average customer. Ecstasy, MDMA’s dirty little sister, is what must be considered when you compare illegal drugs to legal drugs, as that is the alternative. Even street bought MDMA is nowhere near 100% MDMA. This leads me on to the final, and in my opinion, worst moment of this documentary, where George Lamb fucks up yet another incredible chance to actually learn something from someone who knows what they’re talking about. He’s talking to Matt Bowden (who we also spoke to later for comment), the guy who made BZP big in New Zealand, as a reaction to the massive crystal meth problem they have there. Matt categorically says that BZP is not “safe”, it’s “safer”, but if people are going to do it, “safer” is better than nothing – my sentiment exactly. At this point Lamb demonstrates a display of ignorance of Brass Eye proportions when he says that he’s been told that “taking an ecstasy” is safer than taking legal highs. By this point I was practically screaming at the screen, and I bet I don’t need to tell you why as I’m sure you all have a much higher IQ than Lamby evidently does – the scientist said MDMA, for christ’s sake, not ecstasy, and that’s a pretty fucking important difference. After this, Lamb takes salvia and makes a total tit of himself but I was sick of his bullshit by then (although I did notice that he didn’t even explain what salvia was… considering that he’d been talking about synthetic legal highs all the way through it might be important to mention that salvia is a plant, and is in no way a legal high).

I had many more complaints about this programme, from the trivial (like Lamby’s stupid highlights/streaks/whatever the hell they are) to the not-so-trivial (what about all the legal highs out there that aren’t synthetic? They didn’t get a mention at all, other than salvia which he didn’t differentiate from everything else he’d been talking about), but those are the main ones. I wouldn’t mind if the programme had concluded that legal highs were all bad, as long as it was based on some interesting, reliable evidence. As it was, there wasn’t really a conclusion at all, and I felt like I hadn’t learned anything. There were some interesting ideas (following users on a night out, for example) and some very interesting contributors. It’s a great topic and, as legal highs become more prevalent, something that needs to be discussed, but uninformed dirge like this contributes nothing other than yet more misunderstandings. Given the BBC’s track record, with programmes like Horizon definitively stating that popular legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than MDMA and cannabis (watch that episode here), I had high hopes that this programme would give a well researched, balanced insight into the legal highs industry. Instead, we got a overgrown gawky teenager marvelling at “druggies” and consistently boasting about his own supposed experience with illegal drugs (which did nothing but make him look like a hypocrite), topped off with an image of salvia use no more insightful than “woah, man”. Disappointing work, BBC (But thanks for the extra sales )

Hopefully I can find a video of this somewhere to post up here, but no luck yet.

UPDATE: Here it is! Unfortunately, the site it’s hosted on will probably try and sell you a girlfriend or something before you can actually watch the video. Click the red play button and close the pop up window if one appears. Then, the play button turns green. Click it again and you can watch the entire thing:

It’s a sad day. Once our current stock of Spice has run out, then there’ll be no more Spice. I’m not sure if it’s actually going to be banned, or if our suppliers just can’t get hold of it any more, but what I can tell you is that similar smoking mixtures are still available. We’ve still got Sence & Aroma on the site, and I added Smoke this morning, but here’s what we hope to get hold of in the next few weeks:

Yucatan Fire Genie Mojo Red Ball Ignite Cahoots Chill Zo Hai Eclipse

Hold tight, Spice fans!

Since my last post about the spice behind Spice (and other smoking mixtures such as Smoke, Serenity Now, K2, Sence, etc), it has been brought to my attention that some initial toxicology testing has been done on the synthetic cannabinoid JWH-018. Before we get down to the details however, here’s some pretty weird background information – the sponsor and provider of these studies wishes to remain anonymous! Unfortunately, this makes the whole thing a lot less credible, but since this is the only information we have right now, let’s hope someone else can verify these things at a later date. So far, one professor (who also wishes to remain anonymous) thinks these are real, but as of yet, no one is willing to put their name down on any kind of formal statement. If you, or anyone you know, has the relevant expertise to look over these studies, please drop me a line!

(Quick Update – A lot of people have been discussing and linking to this post, but there remains some suspicion that I have something to gain by saying the JWH-018 isn’t that harmful. Firstly, JWH-018 is now illegal in the UK. Secondly, as I mentioned just above this, if I have got anything wrong, please pick me up on it! If it turns out my analysis of the data is incorrect, I will correct it!)

Feel free to invent your own conspiracy theories, but for now, let’s take a look at the data. You can download the PDF documents in this Zip file [2.04 MB]

CYP450 Inhibition Assay

This first assay looks at the effect of a drug on specific enzymes in your liver. These Cytochrome P450 enzymes are responsible for metabolising the vast majority of drugs you might put in your body, so if you’ve got too much of one drug in your system (ie paracetamol/acetaminophen), then other drugs that are also metabolised by these enzymes (ie alcohol) may compete for these enzymes and so hang around in your system for longer. As you can imagine, it’s important to understand how one drug may affect the metabolism of another, in case of any disasterous drug-drug interactions.

Results: JWH-018 will probably interact with the metabolism of other drugs, so more in vivo work is necessary.

hERG Binding Assay

hERG stands for human Ether-à-go-go Related Gene. This gene codes for a particular type of potassium channel found on heart tissue. This channel pumps potassium ions out of the heart muscle cells and are critical in coordinating the heart’s electrical activity. Unfortunately, these channels are a prime target for drugs to bind to, disrupting their function. This can lead to “Long QT Syndrome”, associated with fainting and can lead to sudden death, so you can see why these kinds of tests are important. Here’s a typical ECG recording showing what’s called the “QT interval” shown in blue, which lasts for longer than it should do if these channels are disrupted.

Results: JWH-018 does not interfere with these channels. That’s a good thing.

Cytotoxicity Assay

This simple test essentially looks at how many cells die when you perfuse them with a drug. The more cells that die, the more toxic the drug.

Results: JWH-018 is not cytotoxic at low concentrations.

GreenScreen HC Genotoxicity Assay

This assay looks at how much a drug will interfere with our DNA. Typically, anything that damages DNA is bad news, being potentially carcinogenic, making the rationale behind this test glaringly obvious. This test was also performed in the presence of a fraction taken from liver cells, which will break down the drug. This not only checks if the drug will damage DNA, but also its breakdown products.

Results: JWH-018 does not damage DNA, so shouldn’t give you cancer.

Rat Repeat Toxicity Assay

Guess what happens in this experiment. A number of renagade lab rats looking for a bad time are rounded up and promised free drugs (kind of like Pleasure Island from Pinocchio; that shit was scary!). The rats are then dosed up and observed. Initially, they appear lethargic (read: totally baked) but a few of them died at higher doses. This appears to be down to problems breathing rather than organ toxicity, but only affected the male rats, who appeared more sensitive to the compound. The drug didn’t appear to accumulate in their systems either, but they did lose some weight, probably because they couldn’t be arsed to eat. JWH-018 showed a huge potency and was found to be tachyphylactic (my new favourite word – it means that more of a drug is required to reach the same state following an initial dosage).

Results: According to FDA guidelines, the human equivalent dose is 0.016 mg/kg but it should be tested in other species before this can be seen as reliable!

Rat Pharmacokinetics

Data is collected on a number of different “pharmacokinetic” aspects of the drug, such as how it is absorbed, distributed throughout the body, metabolised and excreted, which can help with the design of future clinical trials.

Results: JWH-018 is distributed well throughout the rat’s tissues. Metabolism and excretion are normal, with a plasma half-life of approximately 2 hours

Summary

Well, from the looks of these tests, JWH-018 seems to be pretty safe, but unless you want to piss off Ben Goldacre, it would be wise not to rely on this “test tube data” entirely. Also, like I said before, we don’t know where this data has come from, clouding the issue even further.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

Big thanks to Alfa @ Drugs-Forum.com for letting me know about these studies. You can read all about JWH-018 on their Drugs Wiki.

The Spice smoking mixture range has been one of the most popular “herbal” smokes ever, and now it’s no suprise why.

To get an idea of just how popular these mixtures are, just take a look at this data from Google’s keyword tool:

That’s over 37,000 searches a month for these three search terms alone – Spice is definitely a customer favourite. I also get no less than 500 emails a day from Russia asking if I can ship it there by the kilo. So what’s behind it all?

This paper [PDF; 246 kB] has some interesting things to say. It turns out that the Spice blends all contain JWH-018 as well as two compounds based on CP 47497 – all of them synthetic cannabinoids. These are man made chemicals designed to tickle the same receptors as THC, the active compound in cannabis, so it’s no wonder these smoking mixtures are so powerful. The difference in potency between the Spice blends appears to be accounted for by increasing levels of these CP 47497 homologues.

Since this discovery, Spice has been banned in several countries, including Austria and Germany. The BBC also reported on it and had the following to say:

The UK drugs regulator, the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is understood to have identified JWH018 in products available in the UK. It is currently in order to determine whether or not it should be classified as a medicinal product – which would mean it should only be available from a doctor.

The UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which advises the government on whether a drug should be made illegal, is also aware of the substance, and is investigating it.

The Spice manufacturers make no mention of these synthetics on their packaging, so a lot of herb-enthusiasts feel somewhat betrayed. Rightly so, I suppose – not being told just what you’re smoking exactly. People have the choice to put things in their body and some Spice smokers might make a different decision if they had all the facts in hand.

But, why?

The typical reaction to this news seems to be the disgust about putting any of these “unsafe” man-made compounds into their body, as though mother nature was some kind of safety net. “These plants have thousands of years of safe use”, they say! But let’s take a closer look…

Take Kratom, for instance. Kratom contains a powerful compound called mitragynine, which acts upon the opioid receptors; the same targets for opium and its derivatives. One alkaloid in kratom, although present in much smaller quantities, is 7-hydroxymitragynine, which is apparently 17x more potent than morphine! While I wouldn’t call this plant harmful, compared to other drugs like cocaine and heroin, it wouldn’t say it was harmless either. The opioid receptors are a dangerous set of receptors to be messing with – the mu subtype responsible for the classic euphoria that accompanies opiate use also stops you breathing if you tickle them too much. Opiates are also addictive, just like kratom can be if you take too much. While this plant may have seen thousands of years of responsible, moderate use, this is no reassurance at all towards its safety.

Now days, people generally don’t toil in the field every day that Newton sends – we have more free time and money to spend than ever before. We can now afford to use large quantities of kratom every day, as well as other entheogens from around the world, but we don’t have any information about this level of exposure to kratom itself or in combination with other stuff. For all we know, taking a mixture of kratom and Salvia divinorum daily could make your eyeballs explode after day 300, or chronic kratom use might give you some kind of evil superpower. Looking at paracetamol as a rather boring example, if you take the odd one every now and then, you’ll be fine, but if you take 8 pills a day every day for a year, you’ll likely end up with some serious condition. There’s also the fact that modern chemistry can create powerful extracts of these entheogens. Who’s to say they’re safe, just because they come from a plant? And what about any other drugs we might be on? Being on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor like Prozac for depression isn’t uncommon in today’s society – combine them with the “perfectly safe” Banisteriopsis caapi vine, itself a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, and you have a potentially fatal combination of drugs in your system. I bet there are many more contraindications we haven’t even considered.

What about plants like cannabis and tobacco? They’ve also been used responsibly for thousands of years, but it’s only when so many people start to take these things that we realised “Actually, smoking is bad for us”. Besides, our current medical knowledge means we’ve only recently been able to diagnose these kind of things. I’m not sure I want to trust any data from a period when epilepsy might have been down to a demonic possession. How many adverse health effects could we identify in these ancient entheogen users based on what we know today?

So, while we can be uncertain of the long term effects on health of JWH-018 and friends, it seems we can’t actually be certain about the safety of most of the things we happily consume. Yes, they may turn out to be super toxic (although probably not, if they’re given to lab rats), but at least they only act on your cannabinoid receptors. Kratom tends to be prepared as a tea – once you’ve drunk it, you’ve drunk it. If you’ve taken too much, you’ll realise when its already in your blood. It would be much harder to overdose on these synthetics due to the speed at which they get in your system – if you’re too stoned, you won’t want to smoke any more, never mind being physically able to. The cannabinoid receptors they target are also much safter than the opioid targets of kratom. Cannabinoid receptors seem play a modulatory role, rather than being majorly important, so messing with them doesn’t have as drastic an effect. Smoking too much might make you feel a bit sick and dizzy for a while, but you certainly won’t stop breathing.

In all, I think Spice is in the wrong for not making this clear in the first place, but then I’m not suprised they didn’t want to list these compounds in the current political climate. Maybe when the government realises that it is our right to put things into our own bodies, listing these ingredients wouldn’t be an issue.

Even with this new information however, I’ll still be using the stuff. It’s great!