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UK - Legal highs: Record number detected say doctors

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edgarshade

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Aug 31, 2010
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BBC Newsbeat

10:46 GMT, Friday, 3 February 2012
By Nick Beake
Newsbeat reporter

The scientists - who've advised the government before - told Newsbeat that more than 41 new substances were detected across Europe in 2011, breaking the previous year's tally.
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Newsbeat went to Edinburgh to meet 24-year-old Harry. "I've used a few legal substances," he tells us on his way to college. "From research chemicals to herbal highs." He also admits to taking banned drugs and claims his experience of legal highs have been positive. "It was a pretty intense kind of hallucination… it makes you forget about a lot of things, so you can just concentrate on what's there in the moment."
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Dr John Ramsey tests new legal highs in his laboratory at St George's medical school in London. He told Newsbeat that some of the new substances he comes across are potentially very dangerous: "We've got a compound we found a couple of days ago which is potent at 100 micrograms - that's a tiny amount. "Most drugs are active at about 100 milligrams. This one is about a 1000 times more potent. "The risks people are taking are just not worth it."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/16866929
 
Of course, they need to ask the fundamental question, why are all these chemicals being created? To satisfy demand. That demand will continue to exist perhaps until the end of time. They are fighting one hell of a losing battle here - maybe the time has come to admit defeat?
 
BREAKING NEWS - There's more drugs in existence than last year.

Next year it'll be 'There's even more drugs in existence than last year.' And so on...

It's just logic. People will always be exploring the unexplored. It's what humans do best. Whether it's technology, geology, or chemistry.
 
It's just logic. People will always be exploring the unexplored. It's what humans do best. Whether it's technology, geology, or chemistry.
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That quote is amazing!!!!
 
"We've got a compound we found a couple of days ago which is potent at 100 micrograms
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Oh great, so they've found the N-benzyls?
 
skillet said:
Oh great, so they've found the N-benzyls?
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I'm pretty sure many in the media know about all these things since they're paid to dig up stories. Bluelight is among the first Google results when you type in a wide range of synthetic quasi-legal recreational drugs -- and if not Bluelight, then another similar forum. Any competent journalist starting out ignorant could find basically the full range of designer drugs, as well as where the market is looking to next, just by clicking around here for an afternoon. I think it's mostly that they need a feature length piece to really do it, which is hard to convince an editor of because of the investment involved in publishing relative to public awareness/consumption. For the smaller stories it's easier to find an angle to sell it, like a specific local overdose to provide human interest. We're not hiding anything from anybody who has an interest in these things. And it's not like keeping quiet about them online is realistic either. The best way to delay judgment day(s) on the RC scene is to reduce harm by making sure we and everyone we know is using these drugs in a semi-responsible manner because the publications that are going to demand government action are the ones concerned with traditional moral values and "protecting the children". Hell, the journalists at the mainstream publications most likely to be strongly aware of the scene, maybe people at Wired or something, probably use some of these drugs themselves.
 
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True, it's just easy to get the impression they're not willing to do any research at all when it comes to drugs, and just quote a couple of 'experts' in an article.

If they did want to know all about it, you're right, there's nothing stopping them.
 
When is someone going to start selling RC opiates on the market? Bloody speedfreaks and trippers get all the fun :p Where's the junky love?
 
Crankinit said:
When is someone going to start selling RC opiates on the market? Bloody speedfreaks and trippers get all the fun :p Where's the junky love?
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Vendors know that once a reasonably-priced opiod hits the market there's going to be a string of overdoses that is going to compromise their business.
 
^This. They are risking it with designer stimulants (remember what happened with MPDV - "Bath Salts"?). A powerful RC opioid or downer (barring a benzo) would be really bad for RC business...
 
The last thing we need is RC opiates for the reasons explained above. The wrong people would get ahold of it and people would be dying left and right. And while the number of deaths would probably be far less than illegal opiates or alcohol, it only takes a few deaths to make the news, at which point everything blows up. The reason the RCs around now stay legal as long as they do is because it's pretty damn hard to kill yourself with them. Some people still manage, but it isn't very common.
 
I agree that the indiscriminate online vending of mail order opioid RCs is inevitably only ever going to end one way, but interestingly O-Desmethyltramadol has already been on the market for what must be well over a year, and there's been no reports of anyone having any major incidences at all, let alone any fatality. To put things into some context, the RC is relatively obscure and kept 'behind closed doors' to keep things on the safe side, but I'm pretty sure there's vendors out there who are selling it without any sort of background check at all.

I wonder whether opioid RCs will ever take off in any big way. Opioids have a stigma...People fear them. Between the drug users who aren't opiate users because of a line they choose not to cross, and the casual users who just want something to take on a night out, you haven't got many drug users left. A lot of these remaining users will already use opioids and not care for any RC. So basically all that's left are the fearless/curious/foolish drug enthusiasts (us8)). I suppose the greatest potential for harm isn't in who buys the opioid RC, but who sells it on/gives it away recklessly.
 
235360287471352662 said:
Someone already is. Something rather potent.
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This does not surprise me...

...the research chemical suppliers have if anything been getting more and more cavalier. Operation webtryp possibly dented confidence for a short time but they quickly returned stronger than ever (with better legal advice no doubt). It wasn't long ago when it seemed potent dopamine re-uptake inhibitors and drugs such as phenazepam were considered 'unethical' / 'unsavory' to be sold by RC suppliers (particularly compared to less addictive psychedelic tryptamines and phenylethamines) and were sold far more discreetly.

RC suppliers who sell DMT analogues etc are one thing but if you've got suppliers selling ethylphenidate, ketamine/pcp analogues, qualuude analogues, etizolam powder - i highly doubt adding an opioid to that list is going to prevent them sleeping at night (if they were already). It then becomes simply about business - supply/demand/legality. There is sure enough demand out there (how many posts on forums are there requesting RC opioids?!)....

One thing though if there is anything to create some kind of europe wide analogue law you'll bet it will be a result of such cavalier actions as flooding the market with rc opioids.
 
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