Did you find methylone or MDMA more speedy?
I guess if I had to pick one then maybe MDMA but there was usually a lot of alcohol involved (not to mention it was untested and probably
did contain speed) and the occasions I had access to it were few and far between. Methylone on the other hand I binged for the better part of a year alongside plenty of 4-MMC, MDPV and whatever else plantfooddotcom had going at the time. This would have all been between 2005-2009. Nowadays the opposite is true, methylone is all but extinct but I have cheap unadulterated MDMA on tap, which to me now feels less stimulating than I remember either MDMA or methylone being in my youth and less stimulating than the dexamphetamine I'm currently prescribed.
Sorry, long answer to a simple question but there are so many variables with my past use it's nearly impossible to do a fair side by side comparison.
Do you mind if I ask what you dissertation was about?
Sure. It was a critical analysis of the interplay between the British press and government drugs policy from 1995-2020 using the death of Leah Betts and the rise and fall of the legal highs market as its primary case studies. I argue that the botched criminal investigation following Leah's death and then the crackdown on the British RC scene culminating in the passage of the 2016 Psychoactive Substances Act were both a direct response to a series of false narratives constructed by the tabloid press.
Not particularly original but it was the 25th anniversary of the Leah Betts case and the Prime Minister at the time had just dropped
this utter nonsense so the timing felt appropriate.
It would be a dull read, but each of those cases are worth looking into elsewhere if you're not already familiar with them. Plenty has been written about them in the years since and they're both great examples of how the press can have and continue to not only make up whatever they want and print it without facing consequences (especially if it's to do with drugs) but use their influence to manipulate public opinion, government policy and even the course of entire police investigations.
Just seems like a altogether better model. Softer around the edges everywhere, no nonviolent offenders clogging up the system
The simplist and most politically viable solution seems to be to decriminalise and medicalise. You don't need to make illicit drugs legal to purchase or even reschedule them, just stop arresting users and provide medical access for addicts which can be funded with change using the funds saved by not arresting stoners and addicts.
I suppose it depends where you are and whether the police/justice system/healthcare are funded by taxation or privatised, a model like this would never work in the US, and will probably never happen in the UK cos lol politics. Anyway, that's probably a good place to end this ramble.