UK - Psychonauts explore unknown world of legal highs – with themselves as lab rats

[edgarshade]

Guardian

Sarah Boseley, health editor
The Guardian, Friday 4 July 2014 17.06 BST

With reader comments

No sooner are they banned than rogue labs tweak formulae to create new drugs, with terrifying results for those trying them out.

Daniel, until recently, was a researcher, using his bedroom as a laboratory. His apparatus was his own brain. He bought chemical compounds labelled "not for human use" on the internet, ingested them and waited to see whether he was headed for heaven or hell. At times he wondered if he was going to die.

He was experimenting with novel psychoactive substances – so-called legal highs. These are usually based on banned drugs, such as MDMA or ecstasy, and cannabis. Variations in the formula enable them to be sold legally, but nobody can be sure what effect they are going to have on the user's mind or body – and the doctors dealing with the casualties in A&E have no idea what the substance is that has done the damage or how to treat the patient in distress before them.

The risks are enormous and the casualties probably higher than most realise. A House of Commons home affairs committee report in December noted that deaths involving legal highs had risen from 29 in 2011 to 52 in 2012, but because users mix their drugs and most drink alcohol with them as well, the cause of death may not always be certain. Other people may suffer harm from not being in control of their mind or their body, even while crossing a road.

More...
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/04/psychonauts-drugs-experiment-chemistry-legal-highs

 

[S.J.B.]

The risks are enormous and the casualties probably higher than most realise. A House of Commons home affairs committee report in December noted that deaths involving legal highs had risen from 29 in 2011 to 52 in 2012, but because users mix their drugs and most drink alcohol with them as well, the cause of death may not always be certain.

Wow, 52 deaths! That puts them right behind... helium.

Be very afraid!

 

[edgarshade]

Most of the 52 deaths were only "linked" to a legal high. Which means that it was decided by a hysterical newspaper rather than an autopsy. Also about 40 people a year get struck by lightening in the UK, so its in the same ball-park in terms of rare events.