Substance misuse and mephedrone
Mephedrone is the latest and most popular so called ’legal high’ Legal highs factsheet to hit the streets. The substance has been implicated in a number of deaths of young people.
The drug is to be made illegal in the very near future and will become a Scheduled Class B Drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act. This will mean it will be on the same legal status as Cannabis, Amphetamines (speed) and MDMA (Ecstasy)
Mephedrone
Class B penalties are Possession : Up to 5 years; Dealing: Up to 14 years imprisonment.
Mephedrone and the army
There have been 6,360 failed drugs tests in the Army since 2000. About 58 soldiers have been drug tested positive for heroin, 2,510 for cocaine and around 1,090 for ecstasy.
More than 6,000 soldiers have failed drugs tests over the past decade, an investigation found. Figures from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) show that the main drug of choice for military personnel has been cocaine, with a fivefold increase in the number of soldiers failing tests for it between 2000 and 2008.
Cocaine tests
However failed cocaine drug tests almost halved in 2009, falling from 430 cases in 2008 to 230 last year. Ecstasy use also fell steeply. It is suggested” soldiers had switched to mephedrone, available via the internet which gives users euphoric feelings similar to cocaine and ecstasy.
Mephedrone use is rising quickly and there are calls for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to report to ministers at the Home Office without delay on the drug. A spokeswoman for the MoD said that the rising number of failed cocaine drug tests was a reflection of drug use in society at large, adding that soldiers were usually discharged for failing the random test.
Mephedrone: The risks
The so-called “legal highs” carry health risks because it is not possible to establish exactly what is in them and the effects are unpredictable. Often they contain potentially dangerous chemicals which have never been used before as drugs and have not been tested.
Recent fatalities from Mephedrone
The family of a teenager who died after taking mephedrone has called on the government to make the drug illegal.
Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, died in Scunthorpe on Monday 15th March, 2010 after taking the mephedrone drug.
Mephedrone is a form of cathinone, a naturally occurring stimulant found in the khat plant. Khat, pictured, is widely used in Africa, where the leaves and tops are chewed, or dried and brewed to make a tea, to achieve a state of mild euphoria.
Mephedrone is sold as a white or off-white powder. Severe nosebleeds have been reported after snorting it, and the drug was linked to the death of a woman in Sweden in 2008.
The drug has effects similar to the illegal drug MDMA, increasing alertness, talkativeness and feelings of empathy. It can also cause anxiety and paranoia and risks over-stimulating the heart and nervous system to cause fits.
It is banned in Sweden, Israel and Germany, but not in the UK. It is usually sold on the internet as a “legal high” and described as a plant food or a research chemical not for human consumption.
The drug is sometimes mixed with other cathinones and caffeine. mephedrone is available for as little as £5 a gram, whereas MDMA costs about £35 a gram.
MHS is developing a drug test for mephedrone which will be available in the near future. The drug test will detect mephedrone in hair, saliva and urine.
Tags: Mephedrone test, Mephedrone use