What’s the truth about legal highs?
Politicians want to ban the few mind-altering drugs that remain unrestricted. But what are they, are they safe – and do they work? Amol Rajan tries some lawful highs
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Independent Minds
Teri Pengilley
You don't have to be a member of the flower power generation to see that "legal highs" might carry the whiff of oxymoron
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Ask them at the right time of day and most ravers will tell you they'd rather not be criminals. Some of them might feel compelled to take ecstasy, which remains a Class A drug in Britain, by the illegality that accompanies it. But most – and this is especially true of regular and recreational users – think it absurd that their pursuit of pleasure be deemed illegal. In their view, the harm associated with it mostly affects those who "drop" the pills themselves, and is therefore not the business of Government.
In this regard, most users of ecstasy inhabit a tradition whose pioneers include Keith Richards. "I've never had a problem with drugs," the Rolling Stone said. "I've had problems with the police." And it's precisely the ubiquity of this view that has caused a relatively new pharmaceutical industry to blossom.
You don't have to be a member of the flower power generation to see that "legal highs" might carry the whiff of oxymoron. The term refers to a commonly available breed of drug that replicates the effects of ecstasy but carries none of its criminality.
At least not for now. Before leaving the post of Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith said last month that she was considering taking the prefix out of "legal highs", and just sticking with the "high" bit. "It's absolutely right that we continue to adapt our drug policy to the changing environment of substance misuse," Smith said, following the death of a Sussex University medical student named Hester Stewart. The 21-year-old's body was found near a container of GBL, a "legal high" also known as paint stripper. Smith didn't have time to implement the plans, but they sit close to the top of her successor Alan Johnson's in-tray.
These "legal highs" are distinguished from ecstasy by their content rather than their effects. Ecstasy, which generally comes in the form of pills – also known as "disco biscuits", "beans", or "party poppers" – is essentially made of methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA for short (hence the nickname "Mandy", sister of cocaine "Charlie"). Users of ecstasy generally prefer to swallow MDMA in its purer form, as a crushed-up pink or brown crystal, rather than in pills bought from dealers, where other alien powders such as bicarbonate of soda (which helps cakes to get high, but not humans) might be added. In this sense, the commonly consumed form of ecstasy can be thought of as MDMA plus any junk the dealer wants to throw in. The more junk there is, the better his margins and the worse the pill.
The drug causes the release of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, and stimulates feelings of intimacy and ecstasy, while reducing inhibitions. It also stimulates the release of dopamine and noradrenaline, also neurotransmitters, and oxytocin, the so-called love hormone associated with orgasm and childbirth. By making the heart beat faster, ecstasy pills cause users to experience a period when they are "coming up", feeling a surge. Once the effects have fully kicked in, they attain a sensation described in common parlance as "rushing" or "buzzing".
"Legal highs" do much the same thing. There are two common forms, both of which Jacqui Smith had within her sights. The first is GBL (gamma-butyrolactone), an industrial solvent also used as a paint stripper (seriously) and sometimes confusingly referred to as liquid ecstasy – which is misleading, because there are types of liquid ecstasy that are in fact illegal. It is a fast-acting drug with vaguely hypnotic and euphoric effects that are accentuated when mixed with alcohol.
The second major type of legal high is BZP (benzylpiperazine, sometimes called "Benny"), whose effects on the brain are very similar to MDMA. BZP began life as a worming treatment for cattle, but the likeness between it and ecstasy has led to a surge in popularity. A recent report for the European monitoring centre for drugs and drug addiction highlighted several side effects – stomach pains lasting 24 hours, headaches, nausea, vomiting – but received very limited media coverage in Britain.
A few years ago a craze began for another type of legal high, piperazines, which are from the same class as Viagra but have similar effects to ecstasy. But those drugs, marketed as PEP pills, have faded in popularity.
Purely in order to serve the interests of these pages, your correspondent was convinced to purchase and consume two "legal highs". This he did on the River Cam in Cambridge two weekends ago, a ripe location if ever there was one for such indulgence. The pills can be procured from, among others, shivaheadshop.co.uk. The website advertises bongs, vaporizers, pipes, chillums – and legal highs and incense.
Within the final category there is a huge range, including herbal blends, incense sticks, Koru energy strips, natural herbal remedies, snow blow, party pills, Jungle High energy pills, and Happy Caps. This newspaper obtained some Blessed party pills (four of them at £12.99) and a box of Happy Caps (five at £5.99). Together with shipping costs of £2.45, the pills arrive in three days at a total cost of £21.43. You can pay by card, which is not a method of reimbursement your average dealer is familiar with. Most dealers will charge between £3 and £4 for a pill, so though the Happy Caps represent very good value, the Blessed party pills are about an average price.
The Blessed pills don't achieve the aim promised on their package – "seeing the light" – because within 20 minutes of consuming one on a full stomach your vision begins to blur. At first, this happens slowly and gradually, and then much faster. It's not a case of losing your sight altogether – people are still distinguishable – but there is certainly a generalised haziness. With it comes an overwhelming sense of happiness, together with a strong affection for those in your company. This mellow buzz lasts, on one pill, for around three and a half hours, peaking during the second hour. Even after the buzz has gone, it takes a few hours of sleep before you return to a proper sense of sobriety.
The effect of the Happy Cap pills is milder (as the price would make you expect) and there seemed a stronger short-term memory loss. The buzz lasts for an hour or so less than with the Blessed, but there is basically the same all-pervading sense of excitement and jollity.
It would be remiss not to mention a slight come-down the following morning, when the serotonin levels in the brain are grasping their way back to normal. Regular users become accustomed to this, knowing it will go away, but to new users they can be a nasty shock.
Why this is experience is legal, while consumption of MDMA is not, cannot be comprehended without abandoning rationality. The former Home Secretary might have a point about consistency. No figures exist for how many "legal highs" are taken each weekend, but police now consider them a growing concern.
The true extent of ecstasy consumption is only now becoming clear. It was helped 18 months ago by the curious tale of Mr A, a patient formerly under the care of the addiction centre at St George's medical school in Tooting, south London. Between the ages of 21 and 30, this chap consumed 40,000 ecstasy pills. He started with five over a weekend, migrated to 100 each month, and finished with 25 a day, a habit he sustained over four years. Doctors were not surprised to discover a causal link between this behaviour and the hallucinations, paranoia, muscle rigidity and short-term memory loss that this man endured.
But when Richard Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales Police, had the audacity to claim that ecstasy was a "remarkably safe drug" (try taking 25 ibuprofen a day for that long – actually, don't), he was lambasted as a dangerous naïf. Similarly, a distinguished government drugs adviser, Professor David Nutt, whipped up a media storm when he said in a journal article that taking ecstasy was safer than riding a horse.
Why would these public figures say such things? Figures from 2003 (among the latest available) estimated there are 730,000 users of ecstasy in the UK, taking between 500,000 and two million pills each weekend. Since 1994 there have been approximately 400 deaths involving ecstasy – including, of course, that of Leah Betts in 1995. But around a hundred people die each year from adverse reactions to, or overdoses of, aspirin and paracetamol.
It has long been a staple of the case made by those in favour of legalising ecstasy that its use is so widespread as to make the law an ass. The advent of "legal highs", and their booming availability, now proves that point indubitably.
Party drugs: What's allowed
* Although GBL, an industrial solvent, can be bought legally, the body converts it into GHB, a common "date rape" drug, which is banned in the UK as a Class C substance.
* BZP or "Benny" originated as a worming treatment for cattle. Its effects are similar to those of ecstasy, a Class A drug.
* Other legal highs include Blessed party pills and Happy Caps, containing ingredients such as caffeine, kola nut, clary sage and geranium.
* Magic mushrooms, which have hallucinogenic qualities, were legal until 2005, when they were reclassified as Class A (except in their fresh form).
* Class A drugs include ecstasy, heroin, LSD, crack, magic mushrooms, cocaine and amphetamines.
* Possession of a Class A drug currently carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison or an unlimited fine.
Fiona Roberts
Should drug laws be tightened to include legal highs? Or should rules on all drugs be relaxed? Write to: yourstory@independent.co.uk
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Comments
Recreational pharmaceuticals will never be legalized as the government also gets great mileage over the knee-jerk reaction to the word "drugs". We all know that the slightest sniff of anything harder than caffeine is starting down the road to being a crack addict stealing car radios to fund a 10,000 a day habit!
People have been getting high for millennia and this new set of bans won't change that.
The cons: More deaths from drug overdoses/accidents while intoxicated. Stoned revellers on a Saturday night spralled in the streets mumbling "Wow, this stuff is HYPER" (but no fights) Booze sales down. Ciggy smuggling increases.
No-brainer, really! (Home sec, take note)
At the end of the day all vices in excess are harmful without exception; The question is can you tax them enough to deall with the long-term fallout for those who become more than just weekend warriors.
True enough, so perhaps we should limit a majority of people's choices to make sure the minority are 'protected' from themselves.
But surely it IS up to the individual what he or she does in their lives as long as it hurts no-one else. If you want to kill yourself, should you be forbidden to do that?
Alcohol and cigarettes are just as feely available even though the health problems associated with them are well documented.
And have you EVER heard of someone dying from smoking too much marijuana?
If opium was grown to order in Afganistan, shipped to the UK and made into heroin and sold (at a profit) by the NHS who would lose? Only criminals. The addicts would eventually OD and save the government a packet in health care & pensions.
Personally I am an individualist and I think suicide should be a choice (without having to skulk off to Switzerland) but I can see and have seen the collateral damage caused by someone on a mission of self-destruction.
As to your suggestion that the state (and therefore the rest of us) could profit from addicts - I ask you what happens in your scenario when the first Generation OD; are we then going to start recruiting more to bolster the Treasury coffers? Since we would no doubt have become dependant on the revenue; as we have with cigarettes - which if all the duty was put specifically to helping smokers rather than being subsumed into a general healthcare pot - our smoking related research and treatments would the best in the world.
And even further down this hypothetical road what happens when some future government privatises it.
As to cigarettes etc are legal - that was something based on the time the laws were set - It is only in the last 10-20 years has it actually become viable to make tobacco illegal since the number of smokers has dropped to less than 25% of the population. Try it with alcohol in the UK and you would have a revolution on your hands
Ban alcohol? Didn't the American try that in the 1920s? All it did was fund the gangsters and turn them into an organized force.
Personally I can't see why we should continue to criminalize something which people are going to do regardless. Canute tried that and look what happened to him.
Lets have a reality check here! Is MDMA more dangerous than alcohol? Are the long-term effects of cannabis use and different to second-hand smoke and kids? Are 20 cigs a day worse than a couple of spliffs a day? Let's legislate and label narcotics according to harm done - not the hysterical "Skunk is 20 times more potent than the 60s Moroccan" It's simply saying to the gullable avoid cannabis and drink alcopops - it's legal, therefore it's safe.
I will deal with all of yours.
1. If we legalised everything that people are going to do regardless there would be no need for the police. your just playing the numbers game here.
2. I'm sorry but whether or not MDMA has long-term side affects is still not known because as another poster said here there arn't enough cases YET to draw any definitive conclusions.
3. Are 20 cigs worse than 20 Joints a day (as oppossed to 2)- no because of the way most people consume cannabis they actual do themselves more damage than smokers
"marijuana smoke contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke" http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/marij
Finally ask any tobacco smoker whether he thinks smoking is harmless and would they wants their kids to smoke and I would be surprised if you got any answer other than an emphatic NO.
1. If we legalised everything that people are going to do regardless there would be no need for the police. your just playing the numbers game here.
We still need the police but not to enforce an unenforcable drug policy - perhaps to kill innocent bystanders at G20 meetings or perhaps to catch other types of criminal - releasing the police from drug enforcment would be doing them a favour.
2. I'm sorry but whether or not MDMA has long-term side affects is still not known because as another poster said here there arn't enough cases YET to draw any definitive conclusions.
Fine, so lets assume it harmless until proven otherwise.
3. Are 20 cigs worse than 20 Joints a day (as oppossed to 2)- no because of the way most people consume cannabis they actual do themselves more damage than smokers "marijuana smoke contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke"
I can see you've never studied drug use and effects. The average smoker might consume 3 joints in the course of a day. Each 'high' usually lasts around 3 - 4 hours depending on strength. So if we're talking about 20 cigs a day, if marijuana is used then that's the equivalent of 4 cigarettes a day - 6 if they mix the high quality weed with cheap 'n' nasty baccy so the pot smoker would be consuming only 20 - 30% of the carcinogens than the ciggy smoker
a high might last 3-4 hours but the initial hit last 30 secs from then on it starts to fade until you have another drag and so on until if you go far enough you become "blocked"; unless of course you want to starve yourself and have a "whitey" which will last considerably longer but I don't anyone who rates that as a pleasant experience. As you also pointed out that unless they are rolling with something like Dutch spirit you also consume baccy and you do it without a filter - thereby leaving you open to nicotine addiction as well as greater levels of carcinogens absorbed per joint.
I'm guessing you've "found Jesus" and have turned over a new leaf?
Brits for some reason are out of step with everyone else in mixing tobacco with the weed or hash. Everyone else uses a bong (water pipe) or a small chillum - many smokers don't smoke cigarettes but 99% of Brits seem to.
See: http://economics.about.com/od/incometax
Regarding the wasted resources spent on the failing drug laws.
Doesn't I can't appreciate the damage is causes
Loss of work ethic?
Costs to the NHS?
or just the 'nanny state' deciding it knows what's in our best interest?
Surely it's up to the individual what he of she does with their body? Even if it means harming it with greasy food/narcotics/alcohol/paint thinner/overwork/cigarettes/suntanning/a
As long as this doesn't interfere with other people's freedoms or lives, it's not really your business to decide what other people do, is it?
By all means advise on the possible risks of such behaviour according to known facts but keep it honest - overblowing the dangers posed, especially when these untruths are exposed so easily, simply leads to people ignoring true facts believing them to be more propaganda.
Even if legalised how would the addicts fund their habbit -I would imagine exactly the way most of them do now only they have to do it more often because of the price hike caused by duty; yes smokers can work (although I can see the fag break becoming a thing of the past in the next 10 years) so a move to manual outdoor work; Alcoholics on the other hand eventually cease to function but that takes years. Showing up high on the other hand can happen at any point in the cycle.
I honestly think we are talking at cross purposes here; where your looking at the individuals right to choose; I'm looking at what happens in 20 years down the road when we begin to foot the bill and those whose lives are effectively over because they wont have killed themselves.
you only have to look at as other posters say the cost of treating the ones that are leagal like alcohol ( a cost we all must bear in a welfare system).
I would accept decriminalising possesion in order to free up police resources as they have done in Portugal and Holland (I recommend you surf for the netherlands recently changing policy of drug use and their reasoning);
but leagalisation means marketing and promotion and just like all our modern ills greater Market share will be achieved by getting them younger an younger to establish brand loyalty. If you doubt that look at the history of tobacco advertising (and most of that was when the "science" was in its infantcy) or even something a seemingly benign a Cola. Its a cynical business and whatever rules are put in place; just as with alcohol they will try to circumvent.
My last point on this topic is what happens when these Glaxoesque companies making the billions they surely would from this, start working on a more addictive skunk (got to catch them and keep them you know) or contributing towards political parties.
I dont know perhaps this could have been legal 40 or 50 years ago in more innocent (in terms of consumerism) times but I believe genuinely that it would be a distaster now.
Ironically talking to you is like talking to myself 10 years ago - I guess its a time and perspective thing.
Fund their habit? If we're thinking legal here the price will be lower. During Prohibition the price of a bottle of gut-rot grain alcohol was 4 or 5 times the price of good Burbon afrer prohibition. Amsterdam skunk (after the law changed) became half price (and the quality went up).
As for underage drug use, well we have that with alcohol and cigs and that's not going to change - but steering kids away from the more addictive drugs and 'safer' drugs must be a good thing. Going down the same road as the Dutch is the way to go and we haven't seen the Glaxoization of cannabis there, so I don't think that will become a problem.
Time and perspective? What made the change?
In fact, we know perfectly well what the problem is. These products are not taxed. The entire fuss is about a centralist state protecting its right to tax its citizens while killing them with its preferred psychotropic.
This government is so morally bankrupt it actually rejects the advice of its own medical experts on trivial drugs while allowing OAPs to freeze to death and smokers to die horribly from lung cancer. This government is not unusual in its desire to tell people what is right for them. It is however unusually bad at telling the truth, and even worse at recognizing that people frequently know better than ministers. The two go hand in hand - people who live in denial often have a hard time getting their facts straight.
Good to know, then, that Jacqui (the worst Home Office minister in history) Smith and her successor will keep Britain safe for binge drinkers and vomiting louts in order to save us from the depravities of 'shroomies' and pot heads. We can only hope that at some point there will be a little window of sanity.
The thing with ecstacy & LSD amazingly are that they are non toxic substances. The more you take the less effective the drugs become. If you take ecstacy on two successive weeks the second week the high will not be as good. The biggest concern must be clubbers mixing e with alcohol. Much of the good work done in the early 90's has all but gone. Surely people have a right to harm themselves but not others. It's not illegal to commit sucide then why should it be illegal to take ecstacy? If its not a problem for me then why is it a problem for any one else? I could get totally drunk go down the local AE cause absolute mayhem & every one laughs it off as high spirits. Who knows there may be a life threatening situation (stroke/heart attack) which gets over looked because of these druken idiots.
Ever since the Independent joined the Daily Mail it has really been anti every thing.
Mixing alcohol and MDMA is an issue only in that it quickens the removal of the MDMA from the blood stream. They don't work together.
If you go to a dance club you can often see people mixing illicit drugs with alcohol. The trend of 'dance safe' has all but gone with a bottle of water. Many doctors are warning about the problems in the medical journals.
The issue of money arrives. The drinks industry funded the Leah Betts campaign. Alcohol is the only drug that is allowed to appeal to kids. I wonder what would happen if you had cigarettes that appealed to 14 year olds? Alcopops were designed in the mid 90's when recreational drugs were taking over & alcohol was lossing it's appeal. Before 96 young people consuming alcohol was on the serious decline. The Police thought that the way to tackle the illegal drugs problems was to promote things like Hooch, all it has done is create a monster of a problem.
For the vast majority of the UK's history, all drugs were legal and the country was still robust enough to take over half the planet.
American hysteria should not govern UK policy.
.
My solution, for what it's worth, would be to classify every drug, legal and illegal (including alcohol, caffeine, etc.) according to hazard. This would, of course, be somewhat difficult with privately cultivated or synthesised materials where there are no quality controls or nationally agree standards, but the basic principle stands. The point, of course, is that people - as private citizens and as public institutions - could gain an informed contextual understanding of relative risk. Illegality could then be decided upon according to this hazard-based grading system - actually, I'd prefer controls, where necessary, to outright illegality.
Anyway, the main thing is that the current situation is irrational, with illegality being determined by many other factors in addition to hazard, including prejudice, knee-jerk reaction, and uninformed emotionalism. I'm not proposing a free-for-all where anyone can have easy access to lethal substances, but simply a sensible grading system as the basis for personal and public assessment and decision.
Q: Why should it be illegal to get high? And why do Ministers consider it so important to criminalize it at every opportunity?
A: Control for the sake of control
Legalising drugs would also give politicians and senior police officers an increased opportunity to display their bigotry and ignorance discussing other things.
As far as banning the legal highs go, here the argument seems to be that they should be banned because they give the same pleasure as taking ecstasy. Giving pleasure should not be a reason to ban something. Where is the evidence that these legal highs cause serious health problems or problems for society ? Without that evidence there is no justification for banning them.
The drug laws as they currently stand effectively categorise a huge number of people as serious criminals serverving long periods in jail. Why should the 700000+ people who regularly commit an offence 'wrothy' of a long jail sentence be expected to have any respect to the law when it comes to much more minor offences(judging by sentences at least) like assault and theft.
The context of drug use needs to be put into context.
- 400 deaths "involving" ecstasy. Where the person had been taking it - how many of those were actually "caused" by the ecstasy? I'd imagine the figure is *far* lower than that. Oh, and Leah Betts died because the government advice was to drink lots of water, so she drank several pints in one go, and flooded her brain. Nothing to do with the drugs at all.
Involving... Not "caused by".
Secondly, to all those who say that 25 pills a day is excessive, or that you've never seen anyone do more than 10... of course it's excessive, but I've certainly seen large groups of my (old) friends who would easily take more than 10 every weekend. I was with one mate when he took 35 in a night. It depends who you hang around with. As a rule of thumb, I found the less educated people took more (as in normal education, not drugs), and these are obviously the majority of people.
Finally, it took a loooong time to find out the true effects of smoking on the body. It will be longer for ecstasy, because you need a statistically large enough number of people to have taken it over a lifetime to know the effects. Since it is illegal this is more difficult to obtain, and the actual consistency of the drugs will be less knowable too. Add to that, the brain is more complicated and less understood than the lungs. You're jumping the gun to say ecstasy is less harmful. It may not kill, but it may be linked plenty of other conditions that we are as yet unaware of. Death is sometimes better than suffering, ask anyone with a chronic debilitating condition.
Oh, and suicide *is* a criminal act. (or was the last time I looked)
And yes, I took far too many tablets when I was younger, don't take any drugs (legal or not) now, and would support legalisation with heavy regulation.
Even though the one drug that does the most damage is of course alcohol. The US did try to ban this one once - which of course led to the rise of organised crime (And suddenly very "thirsty" legislature -so the story goes).
This story points out that there are 0.7 million regular E users. How many regular dope smokers are there? How many Charlie users are there? And the big question, how many people are occaisional users? The reason for the questions is: How many votes is that? How much TAX is that? How many more POLICE on the beat? (To quote THE WIRE - "doing real police work")
Like many have said - it's a no-brainer
Ensure that the users of the dangerous substances go through medical channels to obtain their drugs and that they are properly informed of the dangers of the drug and available treatments.
Force the police to stick to chasing the truly dangerous.
.
Also, many of the 'facts' are very questionable eg:
"Users of ecstasy generally prefer to swallow MDMA in its purer form, as a crushed-up pink or brown crystal, rather than in pills bought from dealers..."
Is this really true? How many of the millions of weekly ecstasy users have ever taken it as anything other than a pill?
I expect better from the Indie.
Dan
At first, acid was fun for her and she believed it was a real spiritual experience. As I predicted, those trip soon became sinister and flightning. She was worried the world was going to end, she was paranoid about extreme weather hitting her area ) which it hasn't.
My housemate who was an enthusiastic 90's drug clubber now has great difficulty remembering pages she's read, and suffres from depression.
My other housemate who used ecstacy, sometimes spliff and MDMA on night's out can't focus on you when you talk. Her eyes have no direct gaze. One moment she'll be talking non stop about something she's seen that day, then it's almost as if she passes out inside her brain. She'll stop mid-sentence and stare into the wall behind you. When you wave your hand in front of her face and remind her she was in the middle of telling you something, she looks surprised and has almost no recollection of what she was about to say, or what she's just been talking about!!!!!
I value my brain. My uncle sufferes from manic depression and people should realize how precious their mental health is. Drugs should not be touched in my opinion. It that high REALLY worth risking your mental health for? The balance of neurotransmiters is a delicate thing. I just don't understand why people care for their brain so little.
Drug users - you'll never treasure your mental heath until it's gone - and if or when it does go you'll know what real hell is - just ask my uncle.
Bill Gates took acid (his Playboy interview), and so did Steve Jobs. Just Google it if you don't believe me. I wouldn't say they've lost their mental health. Sure some people can't handle it, but that is most probably down to the fact they had a weak mentality to begin with. It's the chicken and the egg arguement.
1) You are lying ?
2) you are exaggerating ?
3) They are still using, but avoiding informing you of what drug they may be high on, for fear of being judged and/or diagnosed by your textbook psychiatry ?
4) You seem to be the common denominator. By this, I mean that it could be you, actually, that is causing them to withdraw, tune out, forget pages (from you, no doubt... lol) and seem depressed in your company etc. etc.
5) Your post is factually correct, and it is my own mental impairment which is causing me to interpret your post as total eyewash?
It has been used in the millions and it has been used for years upon years. It benefitted society yet it was still banned and the research that was conducted was incredibly biased and flawed (they used doses that would be UNACCEPTABLE on any level). Obviously certain regulation needed to be applied, and more research conducted, but it did cut down illegal drug use and illegal drug crime.
Also newspapers need to do their research. BZP by itself ISN'T an ecstasy alternative. It is usually combined with TFMPP or some other piperzine to achieve such states. BZP by itself is similar to an amphetamine. So what's the truth about legal highs? Well it certainly seems like this article doesn't know it.