thanks for taking the time to make such a detailed consideration of my blog post. It would have been nice if you’d let me know that you had done so… I have only just found this post (Googling my own name, yeah I know, how sad!) and it would have been nice to provide my reaction nearer the time.

There are several points I’d like to raise:

1. To clarify: my original piece was speculation on what could happen, not prophecy on what would happen. Many of your points are valid reasons why my suggestions may not happen, but the fact is neither of us have a crystal ball.

2. Mephedrone induces a completely different type of psychoactive response to alcohol or cannabis. In general terms, mephedrone is a stimulant drug, whereas alcohol is a depressant and cannabis is a hallucinogen. I suggested users would switch to cocaine or ecstasy as these are other stimulant drugs (with a cultural precedent). Alcohol isn’t for people who desire stimulation.

3. I consider any business to be legitimate if they abide by the law. My understanding was that there were two main places consumers could purchase mephedrone when it was legal: so-called “head shops” and Internet retailers. Re head shops, surely these must be considered legitimate? They have been around for decades on physical premises. Internet retailers may seem more covert in their operation, but I’m sure HMRC have ways of checking whether an online business is paying its taxes. I also note that the websites took steps to avoid falling foul of the Medicines Act by describing the drug as “not for human consumption”, “plant food” or similar. That would suggest an intention to abide by the law. Why would a site run by criminals be bothered to take these steps?

4. If the law acts as a deterrent, why do more (young) people use cannabis in the UK than in the Netherlands where it is effectively legal? Why across the various States of the USA is there no correlation between the severity of their laws towards cannabis and its usage? Why wasn’t there a surge in drug use in Portugal when they decriminalised possession of all drugs in 2002? Why has cocaine trebled in use since 1997, despite being Class A throughout this time? Why has ecstasy use dwindled throughout this same period, again whilst remaining Class A? I see no evidence of a deterrent effect. There are much larger overriding cultural factors involved in drug use.

5. While I’m sure new drugs will continue to be developed, their commercial potential will be restricted if there are existing legal highs saturating the market.

6. Alcohol and tobacco are consumed because they are part of our mainstream culture. Other drugs are consumed as part of an alternative counterculture. No alteration to their legal status will change this. Alcohol prohibition didn’t stop alcohol consumption in 1920′s America, the Gin Acts didn’t stop gin consumption in 18th Century London, and (I repeat) Portugal’s drug decriminalisation didn’t encourage drug consumption in Portugal this decade.

7. You say you want to avoid condemning more children to an upbringing by alcoholic parents, yet earlier you said banning mephedrone would increase alcohol use… your own arguments make a good case for keeping mephedrone legal.

6. Your points about drug driving are good ones. But drug driving needs to be policed whether or not a drug is legal or not. One other thought, why do we assume driving on mephedrone is automatically a bad thing? I repeat: it is a stimulant drug. The government’s own advice is to use the stimulant caffeine if you are feeling a bit tired behind the wheel. Perhaps other drugs could have an even better effect at improving a driver’s responsiveness?

7. My grandfather died of lung cancer. But government regulation – health warnings, licensing, tax, age restrictions, NHS help for people who want to quit – has successfully cut the number of people who smoke. These regulations are only possible under a legal framework.

That’ll do for now

The media frenzy surrounding cathinones has led us to believe that most of the country’s children are spending their days passed out in the gutter after a heavy night of furious plant-food snorting, when they should in fact be attending school. As someone who spends a great deal of time working in a number of schools in some very disadvantaged areas, this is something which is yet to come up even anecdotally through conversations with teaching staff.

It is my firm belief that most users of cathinones take them whilst on a night out. Whilst the legality of drugs like mephedrone has certainly made them more available, there has been no discussion of the notion that their popularity might also be linked to the decreasing purity of MDMA/ecstasy.

The most convincing argument against the knee-jerk media-induced criminalisation of users of a drug which has (as yet) only been *linked* to a comparatively small number of deaths, surely lies with criminal activity. An unregulated and clandestine trade will undoubtedly lead to the decreased purity of mephedrone too. This could have catastrophic health consequences depending on the substance used to cut the drug. Making the importation of Mephedrone illegal will not stop dealers from trying. Instead, there will be more naive victims of the drugs trade languishing in jail or filling up mortuaries as drugs mules and couriers.

Until conclusive proof that mephedrone is a very dangerous substance can be provided, I think this is completely the wrong move. Even then, permitting the use of alcohol, such an anti-social drug which as you rightly point out is very dangerous, but prohibiting the use of another arguably less anti-social drug is absurd.

Stop children from using cathinones the same way we stop them from consuming alcohol, but I do not see how it is the duty of parliament to legislate against the personal use of a substance which to my knowledge creates no anti-social behaviour at all.