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gap. Mephedrone gained rapid popularity and acted as
a catalyst for the modern online market in a new breed
of psychoactive substances that we all know today.
But how easy exactly, Power wanted to know, was
it to make your own drug? Power decided the best
way of answering this question was to try and make
one himself.
Which he did, using a phone, an internet connection
and PO box. Within a few weeks Power has contacted a
Chinese lab and ordered up a tweaked legal version of
phenmetrazine, a now-banned slimming drug prescribed
in its millions in the 1960s which also became a
recreational drug of choice for The Beatles.
The manufacturers sent him a chromatography
rendering of the drug and offered to deliver it for free.
As Power says, this ‘concierge drug design offered
better customer service than Tesco’. When the packet
arrived he got it tested and confirmed it was his own
phenmetrazine hybrid.
But why would anyone bother doing this? Simple,
said Power, who claimed he could quickly have made
50 times his original investment. ‘Given the right hype I
could have been a millionaire within six months. Yes it
was easy for me because I’m a drug journalist, but if
you want to do it you can do it. It’s possible.’
So what does this all mean, asked Power. Well, he
said, ‘you can ban drugs but you can’t ban chemistry.’
And this unstoppable chemical free for all, this
‘access with no barriers’ is proving deadly, as has
been proven with the number of PMA-related deaths
in the last six months.
‘Over the course of a century, a clear a pattern
has emerged. As each law is made, a means to
circumvent it is sought and it’s found. Those means
can be chemical, legal, social or technological.’ Power
said we stand at a crossroads formed by these four
elements, with the web maximising communication
and distribution.
‘What we have done is outsourced the
responsibility to criminals, dealers, gangsters and
drug-obsessed internet psychonauts for our drug
policy. So I’d argue it’s time to change the drug laws
that have failed to reduce demand or consumption
and failed to reduce the proliferation and emergence
of ever more dangerous drugs on our society. Even I
can make them.’
Power relayed a neat drug war analogy given to him
by Dr David Caldicott. ‘If you see drugs as an illness
and prohibition as an antibiotic. If you treated any
illness with the same antibiotic for 50 years, medical
people would be astounded if a resistance had not
developed.’ And that’s exactly what’s happened said
Power. ‘The only reason legal highs exist is because of
drugs laws – it’s a paradox.’ Power called for supply,
distribution, purity and consumption to be controlled.
Coming back full circle to Colombia, Power said
recent news about the FARC rebels planning to lay
down their arms after 50 years of bitter civil war
offered hope that the inertia on drug policy can be
broken. ‘If the civil war in Colombia which has resulted
in 50,000 deaths over 50 years can be negotiated to
an end in my lifetime, I remain optimistic that we can
overhaul our outdated drug laws and after 50 years of
bloodshed, make peace.’
The raft of new highs now being peddled in head
shops, by dealers and over the internet was also
addressed by Dr Russell Newcombe of 3D Research.
He has been keeping an eye on drug trends for the
last 30 years. His presentation, aptly titled The Game
Changer navigated a path through the jargon and
myths around these often fly-by-night substances that
continue to bewilder parents, journalists and drug
workers alike.
Newcombe began by addressing terminology. ‘Legal
highs’ includes drugs, new or old, such as nitrous
oxide, that are not banned, while novel psychoactive
substances (NPS) are new drugs that are either
controlled, like mephedrone, or uncontrolled, as in the
case of Power’s online Chinese creation.
He explained that the legal loophole used by shops
and online retailers to get round the 1968 Medicines
Act, by branding packets ‘Not for Human Consumption’,
ensures that they are not classed as a medicine and
therefore no tests or trials are required.
Although there is a plethora of chemicals out
there, he said that most are synthetic cannabinoids,
hallucinogens, stimulants or benzo-type drugs. In
2012 for example, 50 of the 73 new NPS drugs that
appeared in Europe were synthetic cannabinoids,
although Newcombe said these marijuana
substitutes were farm from harmless, with one, XLR-
11, causing kidney injuries.
These are not niche substances, said Newcombe.
Four in ten young people responding to a survey by the
music magazine
NME
said they had tried legal highs,
while 12 per cent of respondents to the 2013 Global
Drugs Survey had done so. Nitrous oxide, or laughing
gas, is the most used of the legal high/NPS drugs
despite the fact it has such a low profile in the media,
in educational literature and in terms of research.
The web has acted as an enabler for the trade in
NPS, added Newcombe. He said the number of
detectable sites selling NPS across Europe had risen
from 170 in 2010 to 690 in 2012, while the number of
Google search results for the phrase ‘buy legal highs’
is now nearly seven million. But the downside to this
innovation is that, for the drug buyer, the drug market
now exists in a sea of chaos.
Newcombe said that buyers have little idea what
they area getting or how dangerous it will be.
Analysis of one ‘Rockstar’ ecstasy pill found it
contained 11 different drugs. Moreover, these drugs
are mutating. A packet containing two legal highs
identified in Japan was found to contain a third drug
that had been produced by an unexpected reaction
between the original two drugs.
It’s certainly a game changer. Legal highs/NPS
have expanded the drug menu beyond recognition
and new drugs are created as quickly as existing
ones are banned. This has resulted in a whole host
of new harms that many drug services are
unprepared to deal with.
The next move, suggested Newcombe, should be to
use the knowledge of legal high/NPS users – the very
people whose bodies are being used as human guinea
pigs – to inform policy-making and drug services.
Slides and footage of HIT’s Hot Topics 2013
conference can be seen here: http://hithottopics.com/
Max Daly is the author of Narcomania: How Britain
Got Hooked on Drugs
January 2014 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 9
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Cover story |
Hot Topics conference
‘Given the right
hype I could have
been a millionaire
within six months.
Yes it was easy
for me because
I’m a drug
journalist, but if
you want to do it
you can do it. It’s
possible...’
MIKE POWER