On the 16th April 2010 mephedrone became a Class B drug; it was banned. Here we are a year on.
On Tuesday the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (the government’s official drugs watchdog) apologized for the ban taking so long. He added that the ACMD delay had allowed dealers to stockpile mephedrone while it was still legal. He should well be sorry; the BBC were very concerned earlier this year because they found that they could still buy mephedrone on the internet.
Mephedrone is one of the few drugs that has ever had any effect on me. It made me laugh hysterically…every time I heard a reporter or newsreader say: ‘also known as meow-meow.’ For whose benefit was that second, less formal and slightly ridiculous name given out? Did everyone call it that? Did anyone call it that? According to Private Eye, practically no one called it that until the Sun spotted it online (good old Wikipedia) and the rest of the media followed suit: ‘"No one ever called it Meow seriously till the papers picked up on the Wikipedia entry," one drugs expert tells the Eye’ [1].
People still don’t call it meow seriously; no one will ever be able to call anything ‘meow’ seriously. Any fool knows that the supposed Skins generation has no time to use such a speech-slowing phrase as ‘meow-meow.’ It’s going to be ‘meff,’ ‘drone’ or MM-CAT at best (the drug’s chemical identity and perhaps a Hanson song).
The decision to ban mephedrone came after it had spent a longish period at the centre of a self-propagating news story: that media favourite where every single incidence of something is deemed newsworthy and reported on until we begin gasping at its shocking pervasiveness. The ban led to the resignations of Eric Carlin and Polly Taylor of the ACMD. The Times quoted Polly Taylor’s resignation letter, written to Home Secretary Alan Johnson: ‘I feel that there is little more we can do to describe the importance of ensuring that advice is not subjected to a desire to please ministers or the mood of the day's press.’
Sorry Polly, but the Dailies crusade for the nation; they don’t make silly comments about ecstasy being as safe as horse riding or suggest that legalising Mary Jane might be better than people getting kneecapped by out of pocket dealers. No, the media are our protectors. We know this because - now mephedrone is safely an illegal drug - the media reports of its horrors have gone (though it was never particularly legal to sell it for human consumption - a bit of a tenuous ‘legal high’). One year on and it’s no longer killing our children - it’s not in the press, it’s not happening. Sleep soundly.
Although we did have our first mephedrone death on May 17th 2010 (yes, the pre-ban deaths that had everyone concerned about meowing teenyboppers weren’t really directly attributable it seems, but never mind; this one is). At least that is what some in the media thought it best to headline with back in October (Mirror, Express, Sun, Mail… ). 19-year-old Rebecca Cardwell had bought, with friends, a £25 wrap containing mephedrone, benzylapiperazine, trifluoromethylphenylpiperazine and amphetamines. Three days after taking her share she died of acute liver failure. The pathologist gave the cause of death as the toxic effects of all four substances.
Well, at least mephedrone was one of them; it’s not a completely stratospheric distortion to say it killed her in big letters at the top of the page, and put that ‘all four’ nonsense somewhere in the article below, is it? It’s like Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton’s exploration of drunkenness: the pair spent several nights drinking together, one night having nothing but whisky and water, another night only brandy and water, and so on, getting drunk each time. They decided the water must have been responsible for their condition as it was the only constant.
It’s better to play safe, though, isn’t it? Mephedrone is dangerous to an extent, even if we may not be sure to what extent. It can be linked to deaths; it is something with detrimental effects that has been taken by people who have died. It’s uncertain what sort of link that description suggests, though. Is it like someone dying from a gunshot wound after holding a gun to their head and pulling the trigger, or like someone being decapitated in a road accident after smoking high tar cigarettes?
But again, we play safe - surely better than saying: ‘go on, it’s FINE. Take it and enjoy yourself.’ Once the drug is illegal we have done our bit. If those still taking it are exposed to more harm through illegal dealers’ antics it is regrettable, but at least we are sending out the right message: this drug is dangerous. BALLS. Go and listen to Ronan Keating, media. You say it best when you say nothing at all. That way you can avoid overplaying or downplaying a thing before anyone’s decided about it. Yes, people might be dying, and even because of it, but that’s true of many things. You picked this thing out from the rest, media; you made the news story. You embellished it, gave it a PR boost and nudged it in certain directions. You said ‘national outcry’ and again we, the apparent chorus of disapproval, all thought: ‘oh, really? God I’m out of touch. I suppose I better join in this outcry too; I don’t want to seem uncaring and heartless.’
Even worse, the dying Labour government peed their pants and sought a ban/thought a ban rather likely - with the opposition criticizing the delay all the while.
A year on, and what? When mephedrone gets a media mention now it’s because the police have seized a load of it or nabbed a dealer, or even because there’s been a killing of a dealer. There are no more tragic stories of those who actually take it. I’m not sure quite what this means. Is it that people don’t take mephedrone anymore now that it’s been banned (Hooray for our responsible drugs/clubs culture: all wholesome, law-abiding ginger beer and Enid Blyton frolics at heart)? Is it that people who do take it and die no longer merit news reports, because it’s illegal and thus kind of their own stupid fault (Only something legally/readily available is worth outrage and journalism awards)? Or is it that the media, story developments or no, have dropped it – like they would a missing person who still hasn’t been found after xx weeks, or teen stabbings, which continued even when a fortnight’s worth of coverage was devoted to every one (or particular ones) in 2008?
Illegal drugs polarize public opinion and have a lot of illegalities (besides the bans) attached to them – like the crimes committed in the name of dealing or paying for them. They’re bad to start with in a way that booze and ciggies aren’t. They supposedly warp your perception to such a degree that they become suspect in the mainstream and in popular vocabulary. Booze is ‘merry;’ drugs may be merrier, but that is not the way they are described - they are deception, ‘mind altering,’ etc. Booze and ciggies are tolerated, within reason, as merriment and relaxing props (though the latter only if you’re totally isolated from non-smoking civilization). They are bad in excess of course, but drugs are bad whether in light or heavy use – their effect is a constant it seems, irrespective of dosage/usage habits.
Drugs, as deception, are observed to be a de facto misstep for people. ‘You shouldn’t need to take drugs to have fun, anyway’ says some humourless caricature proffering a cocktail sausage on a stick. ‘I’ve always wanted to remain in control of my own body’ says a well-rounded, strait-laced success story, describing drugs as something like a laxative.
It makes for a public discourse that’s very wary of touching on the legal status of drugs, or of advocating their use. Better safe than sorry. We assume ‘safe’ and ‘sorry’ are mutually exclusive. Some people feel sorry when they are safe, because they are safe – those members of the Advisory Council who resigned presumably felt that way. Safe: ‘cautious and unenterprising.’ Head in the sand, just say no and talk about something else: not everybody can do that.
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[1] Private Eye, "Street of Shame", No. 1259, 2–15 April 2010, p. 6.
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