UK - Beware "legal highs" - drugs user warns

[edgarshade]

Swindon Advisor

Friday, November 16, 2012

LEGAL highs should "be avoided at all costs" according to one former drug user in Gloucestershire.

The warning comes as two such substances, Black Mamba and Methoxetamine – derived from cannabis and Ketamine respectively – have been outlawed after Government advisers deemed them potentially lethal.

The 29-year-old, from the Forest of Dean, used to use the drug mephedrone, also known as meow meow, miaow or MMCAT, which was formerly available online for as little as £8 a gram.

Originally advertised as "plant food", the drug was thought of as a legal high before being classified as a Class B drug in April 2010 after being linked to a string of deaths.

He said: "Legal highs can be as dangerous as drugs and should be avoided at all costs. I have learned the hard way, I have had some really bad experiences on meow meow.

More...
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co....html?dwrMeth=addComment&persist=Y&afterReg=Y

 

[Crankinit]

'Hey guys, drugs can do bad stuff to you.'

...no shit?

 

[rickolasnice]

"Legal highs can be as dangerous as drugs"..

Yeah I don't think you should be taking drugs, either.

And.. "Linked to a string of deaths"?

By the time it was banned it had killed about 2 or 3 people.. while reducing cocaine related deaths by half..

"Banning substances doesn't necessarily affect whether people use them or not – it just dictates the market conditions."

Wow.. did someone in that article just make sense?

 

[nastypoker]

The writing in that article is just awful.

Also, my friend quit smoking weed to smoke black mamba, he smokes a couple of grams a week and says he prefers it. Has anyone got any proof that is harmful or damaging apart from biased news reports?

 

[Foreigner]

*face palm*

 

[nastypoker]

I don't mean I don't believe it, I just want something to show my mate the risks he is taking.

 

[BlueHues]

I kind of makes me laugh how some of the people on this website act as if all these research chemicals are "perfectly safe" and all these countries are "banning these drugs with absolutely no evidence that they're harmful".

Ever since these drugs became widely available and popular in the last 3 or so years, emergency rooms have been flooded by people going completely fucking batshit crazy from them!! Paranaoid, violent, delusional, dehydrated. In many cases a lot worse than you'd see from "normal illegal drugs" like cocaine or methamphetamine or LSD.

And sure, I know there's thousands of these drugs out there, and some of them may be relatively safe when taken responsibly, but to suggest that the public backlash against "legal highs" just came out of the blue and was started by a bunch of prudes who just want to "rain on everone's parade" is idiotic!

In the US, just 1 1/2 years ago, somebody with absolutely no experience using drugs could go into a gas station and buy a big bag of mephedrone or MDPV or God knows what was actually in some of them?! I'm glad they're trying to get rid of this shit! These drugs are poorly studied and who knows the long term effects?!....We've seen what cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana do, and IME those drugs are a hell of a lot safer to expiriment with than a lot of this other shit!

The people I really think are defending these "legal highs" are the people who've never actually gotten out from behind their computers and interacted with real human beings before. Pretty much anyone with access to "real drugs" would take them over "legal highs"...I have no proof of this, other than common sense!

 

[23536]

Also, my friend quit smoking weed to smoke black mamba, he smokes a couple of grams a week and says he prefers it. Has anyone got any proof that is harmful or damaging apart from biased news reports?

I don't think it's possible to answer this question unless you know exactly what's in it. And that, too, is unknowable, because the mixture can unexpectedly change.

Is it not standard advice to avoid branded stuff altogether?

 

[nastypoker]

I don't think it's possible to answer this question unless you know exactly what's in it. And that, too, is unknowable, because the mixture can unexpectedly change.

Is it not standard advice to avoid branded stuff altogether?

Yeh but he's the "take drugs to get fucked up" kinda guy. Doesn't do anything serious but I just want him to know the risks. There isn't much info apart from scattered forum posts about someone having a bad time/seizures on these random legal unknown substances.