As the hysteria over Mephedrone in the mainstream media builds towards fever pitch, the SNP have tried to prove to the world that their agenda is set by the tabloids EVEN MORE than the Labour party.

Nice hair Fergus

SNP MSP Fergus Ewing has trumpeted how he has written to the UK government demanding a ban on mephedrone, and now Alex Salmond claims he won’t wait for them to take action. Yesterday’s Daily Record carried the headline ‘Alex Salmond ready to ban legal drug mephedrone before UK government,’ which conveniently ignores the fact that the Scottish Government doesn’t legally have the power to do any such thing.

In fact what’s being proposed at Scottish level is a package of education materials getting put together for distribution to schools and young people. This is, of course, something that SSY would support, as long as the information was based on actual science and not tabloid bullshit. Unfortunately, the SNP’s rush to embrace the tabloid driven BAN IT NOW!!! campaign doesn’t fill us with confidence.

A sane and scientific perspective is hard to come by in the whole debate. You have to turn to Leftfield favourite Professor David Nutt, the man the government sacked for telling the scientific truth about drugs.

One reason that the government hasn’t quite got round to doing as the tabloids command them yet is that their own scientific advisory committee is in chaos after they sacked Professor Nutt, and many of his colleagues resigned in sympathy. The man picked by the government as the new head of the committee, Prof. Les Iverson, has hinted that he will recommend banning mephedrone.

However, Prof. Nutt says: “”The Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs could say that one confirmed death is enough evidence to make mephedrone a controlled drug, or they could say they believe in the precautionary principle, but neither of those is scientific and if they do go down that route then they will have lost scientific credibility. It is an open question whether mephedrone is more or less harmful than MDMA [the main component of ecstasy]. We really don’t know, but I would say that they are probably similar.”

As an alternative to banning, Prof. Nutt recommends “some sort of regulated use for MDMA or mephedrone where people, maybe in clubs, could have access to small amounts, safe amounts under guidance”.

Of course, the voices of people who actually know what they’re talking about, like drugs workers or Prof. Nutt, are being totally drowned out in the media authoritarian frenzy. But sooner or later our society will have to come to terms with the actual scientific facts, rather than the insane pseudo-science of the “anti-drugs” lobby. That is, prohibition has always done far more harm than good, and has never prevented people from taking drugs. The main social consequence of banning drugs is that you make the people that sell them into extremely rich criminals. Potential mephedrone dealers will no doubt be very glad of the free advertising they’re getting, just before the government opens up a tax-free black market for them to profit from.

Bonus: Check out Prof. Nutt’s scientific paper ‘Equasy’, where he shows that more people are hurt and killed by taking part in equestrian activities (horse riding basically) than through taking ecstasy. As he says in the paper:

“coverage of the classification of cannabis and the ongoing review of ‘ecstasy’/ MDMA has shown that the arguments about relative drug harms are occurring in an arcane manner, at times taking a quasi-religious character reminiscent of medieval debates about angels and the heads of pins!”

Specious reasoning alert! The ongoing campaign by the media to give drug dealers a new product to sell got another boost today, as yet another death was supposedly linked to the currently legal drug Mephedrone.

A young woman from North Yorkshire was found dead at her home, prompting local police to speak out against the drug. In a damning statement, that conclusively puts the blame on Mephedrone for this tragedy, DCI Nigel Costello said:

“Although at this time it cannot be determined whether mephedrone is present within the deceased’s system or whether the drug played any part in her death, the police would like to warn people about the use of the drug and its potentially lethal consequences.” (My emphaisis, obviously, since he was talking.)

Of course, the story has been written up as ‘6th victim of the killer drug!!11!’ by the hysterical media desperate to milk a good old fashined drugs crusade. This is despite the fact that the only link here is, maybe, according to friends, the victim might have taken Mephadrone (along with other substances) at some point in the two days leading up to her death. Hmmm.

The government has hinted in the media that they may very soon turn Mephadrone into a class B drug, as part of their highly scientific system of having three grades of nastiness based on how much shite has been talked in the papers. That would put it on the same level of harm and illegality as that other noted, scientifically proven killer, cannabis. Possession of a class B drug can be sentenced with up to 5 years in jail, and dealing with 14.

Of course, all the current pseudo-scientific madness will serve to do is hype Mephedrone up to potential users. Meaning there’ll be a lovely pre-existing market when they ban it, waiting to be taken advantage of by professional dealers. But the papers and the government won’t be caring, as they’ll have moved on to whatever next we’re supposed to be terrified of/enraged by/FUCKING BAN NOW, THIS AN OUTRAGE AAAARRRGGHHH!!!11!

Before any of these nutters say anything, Leftfield would also like to express our sympathy for the family of the victim in this tragic death. It’s just we also have no interest in using a tragic death to make a bunch of unproven nonsense that goes on to further a right wing, authoritarian drug war with the aim of putting more young people in prison. That would be a textbook example of being a bastard, tabloids.

Bonus: check out this bizarre Sky News ‘Investigation’, in which they say “nobody knows what mephedrone does to your body”, and go on to say that the main effects are “putting you in a good mood” (holy shit!), but that possible side effects “may include death”.

Who seems more reasonable, the reporter above, or this worker from Drugs charity Release?

(Incidentally, youtube comment of the week has to go to user zonked23, who on the above video writes “Take loads of drugs fuck the system.”)

Double bonus competition: A jiffy bag stuffed to the gunnels with legal highs for anyone who can prove to Leftfield they actually call Mephedrone ‘Miaow Miaow.’

http://www.crew2000.org.uk/glossary/Mephedrone/13.html

Leftfield would be the last blog to ever suggest that The Sun newspaper, as a bastion of journalistic integrity and proud defender of the truth, would ever stoop so low to tell lies on their front page. As such, we were utterly shocked and OUTRAGED today on our stroll to the shops to learn that not only is the government in the ‘GRIP’ of the unions (presumably the same union who’s action Gordon Brown described the other day as ‘unjustified and deplorable’) but that drugs are killing OUR CHILDREN! But hey look, a suspiciously free one pound bet!
Anyway, arriving home, I decided to do a little bit further investigation into this claim that ‘meow meow’, ie. the quasi-legal drug mephedrone (or bubbles, m-cat or ‘plant food’) ‘killed’ two teenagers.
While clearly absolutely tragic – two boys aged 18 and 19 collapsed and died on Monday following a night-out – what follows is less set-in-stone evidence that ‘drone lay behind their deaths, but more tabloid and police scaremongering and much stretching of the facts to suit their agenda that mephedrone = mega dangerous and needs banned straight away. Note also that the government’s Advisory Council on Drugs is expected to reach a decision on the drug within the next two weeks – if there was ever a time for ramping up the tabloid campaign to ‘BAN’ it, this is it.
In this vein, the article quotes Detective Chief Inspector Mark Oliver, who tells us that “We need to get the message across that this drug is dangerous and you may die if you take it”.

It seems that the specific circumstances of this case are slightly more complicated though – the Sun reports that “Officers believe both lads…  also had access to heroin substitute methadone which they used to bring them down from the high of mephedrone.”
In other words, that mephedrone may have  ’contributed to’ and been ‘linked to’ these deaths, is being taken and used by the Sun to mean that is absolutely, 100% lay behind them.

“It is not clear how the authorities know the drug is involved or whether the figure is the result of a single incident.”