Mumsnet Talk

DS just came to tell me his college is on the news.

2 students died from using
this

mixed with alcohol.

its legal, luckily DS knew all about it. he educated me actually. he tells me its a plant fertiliser. seems the lads in question used it in conjunction with alcohol.

my DS is special needs but is switched on enough to tell me what to google. id rather know if my kids were ever contemplating using anything - even a "legal high".

so the calls tonight are for this to be banned. what are your thoughts?

According to the BBC 10 o'clock news they'd also taken class A drugs alongside the mephedrone and alcohol. I can't quite work out why the parents are so hung up on blaming the mephedrone when there's only actually been 1 death directly attributed to it - that was in 2008(?).

If those boys had been drinking and taking class A drugs then I think the mephedrone was fairly insignificant alongside that.

When are the PM results due?

They had also taken methadone which is a heroin substitute and much more likely to have killed them to be honest. But obviously that isn't quite as exciting a story as the mephedrone one

I'm glad your DS is talking to you about drugs though Vicar, keeping the lines of communication open is great

Personally I think currently banned drugs should all be legalised, controlled and monitored. However that's not likely to happen so I think the best thing is for mephedrone to be banned so people don't continue to view it as a 'legal high' when it obviously is a lot more dangerous than other legal highs out there.

All drugs like this should be controlled in exactly the same way that alcohol and Cigarettes are controlled if not more so.

At the moment none of us know if it was alcohol, mephedrone or Methadone which killed them, or a combination of all three. Several of my friends have annoyed me today by making the case for keeping it 'legal' by using the fact that it was probably the Methadone which illed them. To me that is no reason at all.

Yes some of the reporting is sensationalist scare mongering but the reality is that Mephedrone is a really unpleasant drug with really unpleasant side-effects and sometimes really serious consequences, and by that I don't just mean death. It's a horrible drug, in much the same way that Cocaine is or Heroin is.

I also wonder, if they were such inexperienced drug users where the hell did they get methadone from?

i thought the parents had been on the news tonight to dispel the myth that it had been methadone?

they thought it was mephedrone

i think its unlikely for anyone to take methadone for a first time and for a night on the town? says on Frank its effects are similar to E....DS says its big on the clubbing scene.

DS also seems to think its mephedrone or 'MCAT' or 'MEOW' as its called in college - id have thought that was more likely too in light of it being taken on a night out, also seems quite likely that these things get "cut" with other substances, which makes it more dangerous as you cant be sure what you are taking.

i am pleased he has talked to me about it but i do really feel for the poor parents of the boys who lost their life. what a terrible mistake to make.

I've taken it recently as a legal high but didn't enjoy it at all. I can see why parents want it banned because they're scared but also understand that people much prefer buying from a shop than going down a side alley where they have no comeback

Just because its legal does not mean it's safe!!? People seem to forget this too easily or else they dont know at all??
If anything it makes it more unsafe as there is little or no 'proper' information about these substances and their possible or actual side effects.
Have tried to find a documentry I saw about this last year but no luck?? It was George Lamb on BBCThree about Legal Highs, well worth a watch (if you can find it!) When your young you think your invincible and might wanna try stuff but.... is it really worth it?
I suppose only when or if your lucky enough to get past that stage/phase, do you realise it maybe actually wasnt.

"also understand that people much prefer buying from a shop than going down a side alley where they have no comeback "

like an online shop? I don't see how people would have 'come back'?

Most people I know who take it wouldn't even consider making a complaint about a drug which made them feel ill, not to the police or trading standards anyway.

Dillydallydolly - I saw the George Lamb programme and I don't think the legal highs he was talking about are really comparable with mephedrone.

Apparently this is a 'decent guide' to what is currently known about Mephedrone. I read it and wondered why anyone would even consider using this drug, even 'safely'.

well you can buy it over the counter in Ireland anyway so wouldn't necessarily have to be an on-line shop

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Why would anyone want to put plant food into their body in the first place? Why would you want to take something that has never been tested on human bodies before?

My mind just boggles that anyone could think it a good idea to ingest a chemical that fertilises plants.

Those poor boys.

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Well quite AvrilH, but at least those two substances are intended for use by humans. One is available in shops, one as a prescription medicine.

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These were adults weren't they? 18 and 19? I think adults should be able to put whatever they like into their bodies. If the consequences of that is bad then that is how it goes.

It doesn't take a genius level IQ to understand that if you put lots of any drug in your body it isn't going to go well for you.

No, I didn't know that - have just Wiki'd it. That invalidates my point a little bit, sorry!

I agree with you Morloth, I just don't personally understand why anyone would take that risk.

I've got a friend who is a consistent habitual drug user. She's taken Ketamine almost every day for ten years, amongst other things most weekends. I think she's insane, but I won't pass judgement because it's her body - she's a big old mess, but that's her choice.

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The people that were arrested were arrested for selling a banned substance ie methadone and yet the media are all going on about mephedrone. I think this misinformation is really dangerous because it totally undermines any real information. Interesting table here which compares numbers of deaths versus press reports. Scary stuff.

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"Instead of asking why these men wanted oblivion. I can't imagine wanting to take those drugs. Did they have so little to hope for and why?"

Not all drug users take drugs because they have no hope or becuase their lives are crap. Lots of drug users take drugs just because they love the buzz it gives them.

"Interesting table here which compares numbers of deaths versus press reports. Scary stuff"

I don't get it? So the press report 484% of cannabis deaths?

I think that table is flawed, that or I don't understand it and need it explained to me.

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I doubt they took all at once. Maybe they drank, then had the Mephredrone, then had more drinll then later had the methadone to try to sleep?

"Professor David Nutt, who was sacked by the Government last October for contradicting its drugs message, thinks all legal highs should be handled with caution precisely because they are such an unknown quantity. In December, he told a newspaper: “I know it’s controversial to say it, but people are better off taking Ecstasy or amphetamines than those we know nothing about. Who knows what’s in [mephedrone] when you buy it? We don’t have a testing system. It could be very dangerous, we just don’t know. These chemicals have never been put into animals, let alone humans.” "

source

I know people who have had it and who say they never will again. These are people who have used lots of different recreational drugs.