The headline is clear enough, declaring emphatically: "Drug death student took meow meow," before going on to state: "A law student... was found dead after taking a cocktail of alcohol and drugs including mephedrone and GHB, an inquest heard." Similarly, the Daily Mail led with, "Law student who led 'Lady Asbo' double life... died after taking meow meow," and, "A talented law student... died after taking a cocktail of alcohol and drugs including meow meow, an inquest heard." The Sun also toed the party line with, "Drugs binge law girl took meow," and, "A pretty law student who led a secret double life... was found dead in her flat after taking a lethal cocktail of party drugs including deadly meow meow, an inquest heard today."
You can see where these three "newspapers" were going with this, can't you? Leading the reader to regard mephedrone as the primary cause of Main's death, thus justifying the ban. Yet the articles all went on to acknowledge that while she had taken a combination of mephedrone, valium, and GHB, on top of alcohol, in delivering a verdict of misadventure, Westminster coroner Paul Knapman emphatically stated: "The relevant drug is GHB and the cause of death was given as the combined effects of GHB and alcohol."
Alcohol, of course, remains legal, while GHB (gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid) was already a Class C drug, having been outlawed in June 2003. It is therefore patently absurd that all three newspapers chose to highlight - and therefore implicate - mephedrone, which although it was taken, was not the cause of her death.
The second issue as regards Metro's report is an ironic one in light of the press's propensity to claim the moral high ground. As can be seen above, the paper illustrated its report with a photograph of Main credited to "National News." This photograph was also used by the Daily Mail, with a similar credit, although that isn't surprising given that booth publications are owned by the same company, Associated Newspapers. The problem is that the picture was used in both newspapers without the knowledge of the original photographer.
An observant member of the clubbing social networking site DontStayIn.com (DSI) identified the original uncropped version hosted on it, and the photographer confirmed that his permission had not been sought by either the Daily Mail, Metro, or National News. The Sun, meanwhile, not only used the same and also another DSI phtotograph in its print edition, but also lifted one of Main's own from the site to illustrate its online report, although it seems unlikely that her family were approached for permission to do so.
Meanwhile, the demise of the legality of mephedrone et al was marked by two infinitely more accurate, honest, and pragmatic pieces in the esteemed medical journal The Lancet on 17 April. Kelly Moore's article directly addressing the ban and its implications opened with an interesting piece of direct attribution:
"The exceptionally rapid rise in use of mephedrone and related cathinone derivatives in the UK has caused the Home Secretary Alan Johnson to ban the substances, within the same class as amphetamines (class B)..."This acknowledges two basic truths, firstly the rapidity with which the use of mephedrone spread, and secondly that effectively it was its sheer popularity that led to its prohibition. Had it not "taken off" in the way it did throughout the second half of 2009, it would arguably still be legal now.
Morris went on to emphasise that the sheer novelty of mephedrone was reflected in the almost total lack of scientific literature on the substance, particularly as relates to its potential for harm, despite this being the main driving force behind calls for it to be banned. Unusually, most of the early research comes from Sweden, contemporaneous with, "the death of an 18-year-old Swedish woman, reported in December, 2008, in which mephedrone was the only substance detected post mortem." David Gustavsson, who was involved in this patient's care, stated: "When I first started to look into mephedrone, I was struck by the fact that no reliable information was available at all."
It was soon discovered that it was being used as a, "fully acceptable substitute for ecstasy and amphetamine/cocaine." Gustavsson doubted the common assumption that young people who had not used drugs were experimenting with mephedrone because its legality was equated with safety. It was more the case that experienced users were disatisfied with the availability and quality of illegal drugs. In fact, many were eschewing the controlled substances in favour of mephedrone, but some were concerned with its addictive nature. By the autumn of 2008, mephedrone was the most popular legal drug in Sweden, but in the December of that year it was classed as hazardous, and internet sales were restricted, but that merely resulted in a shift to person-to-person dealing.
Stefan Sparring, senior consultant at the publicly-funded Maria Ungdom clinic for under-20s in Stockholm, stated:
"The drug quickly moved to the illicit trade in the streets, and we still saw new cases every week. In the spring of 2009 it was classed as a narcotic and after that we thought we could see a trend of it disappearing."Instead, after mephedrone was made illegal, another substituted cathinone - methedrone (para-methoxymethcathinone) - flooded the market, and was subsequently implicated in two deaths. With both mephedrone and methedrone now banned in Sweden, Sparring observed: "[now] we have flephedrone instead, and it just continues."
It was perhaps with the clear failure of Sweden's experience of having to ban one substance after another in mind that resulted in the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) recommending a blanket ban on almost all the 34 legal derivatives of cathinone, four - cathinone itself, methcathinone, diethylpropion, and pyrovalerone - having already been outlawed individually. Naphyrone chemically fell outside of the ACMD's generic defintion, while bupropion had established medical uses and low abuse potential, and so was exempted.
Morris went on to note that experience had shown that new substances were invariably developed in response to other legal ones being banned, and in fact naphyrone was already being marketed - under the name "NRG-1" - as a mephedrone replacement (see below). In a joint editorial for the journal Addiction by Adam Winstock of the National Addiction Centre, London, and John Ramsay of St George's University, London, it was stated:
"What has changed is an increase in their [designer drugs] range, potency, profile and availability. The development of global web-based marketing and distribution networks, as distinct from illegal street markets, has emerged concurrently, challenging further the utility of existing supply reduction strategies. While in no way does 'legal' confer relative safety, it does mean that a broader repertoire of responses is available."If a substance is legal to supply for human consumption, both quality and dosage can be controlled in a way that is inherently impossible if it is illegal.
In the same issue as Morris's article, the editorial of The Lancet was even more scathing of the government's handling of both the substituted cathinones ban, but also the long-running issues with the ACMD, noting that, "One sacking and seven resignations is not a good track record for any organisation," and that concerns over both how it operated, and the clearly political pressure it was being subjected to, "left a bitter taste." In the wake of the sacking of Professor David Nutt as the Council's chairman, and the reusltant first round of resignations, the Home Office had attempted to introduce a revised code of practice that, "compromised scientists' independence and would dissuade them from giving objective advice lest they disagreed with government policy."
Dealing specifically with the new legislation, the editorial highlighted the fact that although mephedrone had, "received substantial media attention in the UK after reportedly being linked to 25 deaths," the ACMD's report that 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." In fact, the report was only in draft form, and was still being discussed by the Council when replacement chairman Professor Les Iverson, "rushed out of the meeting to brief Home Secretary Alan Johnson of their recommendation in time for a press briefing." The editorial concluded that:
"There was little time to consider carefully the scientificTwo weeks on, it is clear that events are unfolding exactly as expected. Even before the ban came into effect, a typically alarmist piece in The Sun on 31 March claimed that NRG-1 (i.e. naphyrone), "will kill many more than [mephedrone]," even though it has not been linked to any deaths whatsoever. The report was accompanied by a graphic that - with staggering scientific imbecility - claimed that, "the molecular make-up of ecstasy, mephedrone and NRG-1 are terrifyingly similar," when they clearly aren't:
evidence on mephedrone. The ACMD did not have suffi cient evidence to judge the harms caused by this drug class. It is too easy and potentially counterproductive to ban each new substance that comes along rather than seek to understand more about young people's motivations and how we can infl uence them. We should try to support healthy behaviours rather than simply punish people who breach our society’s norms. Making the drug illegal will also deter crucial research on this drug and other drug-related behaviour, and it will be far more difficult for people with problems to get help."
The Observer reported on 18 April that, "a synthetic chemical known as MDAI has already emerged as a successor to the drug mephedrone, which was banned in Britain this weekend." MDAI was developed as an antidepressant in the 1990s specifically as a non-neurotoxic analogue of MDA (3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine), which itself had had some popularity as a club drug in the United States before being eclipsed by MDMA in the 1980s.
On 24 April the Daily Mail reported on, "a filthy Shanghai laboratory," where even more novel substances were supposedly being created for the UK market. The lab was supposedly the source of what was being marketed as NRG-1, except the owner - known only as "Eric" - maintained that he had, "lied to some vendors to spread confusion, saying the new drug is naphyrone." The Mail claimed that although they had a sample, "expensive testing" was the only way its true nature could be proved. This seems an extreme get-out, to say the least, given that there are more than a few organisations and academic faculties working in this field that would be glad to test it for free as part of their ongoing studies.
Curiouser and curiouser....
