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  • EADD Moderators: Shambles

Guardian story - new drugs

Good to see ya back Mike!

Someone should get some government statistics through Freedom of Information Act & find out if possible how many coroners have recorded Mephedrone as being present at time of death, then use other toxicological data to roughly work out how many people MAY have died in the UK over the last 5 years from Mepehdrone.

I'd be extremely bloody surprised if no-one has died as a direct result of Mephedrone, given that compounds strength, fiendishness & availability... & I suspect it's appeared in many coroners reports.

I'm also pretty certain that people are suffering fatal reactions to the various NBOMe compounds, especially 25i. I'm not sure we've lost anyone here in the UK yet, & I hope Mikes prediction is wrong.

I don't see how anyone could argue that RC's are safer than drugs already controlled.
 
5-IT, the 25-series, and even 5-MAPB and dozens more RCs that sprang up in the mephedrone backdraft are all totally shit, unknown, toxic drugs that are more dangerous than MDMA, amphetamines, mescaline, cocaine, LSD and mushrooms put together.
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to be fair, MDMA amphetamines cocaine and LSD were all uknown drugs too at one point in their history before widespread human use & abuse.

it is difficult to say that the nbomes are more toxic or dangerous than drugs like cocaine or amphetamines. all of them will kill people if misused. including MDMA.

the problem is not that any of these drugs exist and are uncontrolled or controlled, the problem is education and management of supply chains and responsible consumption.

Street drugs are often hideously impure, street dealers are less likely to send their wares for analysis or listen to the concerns of customers, and are intimately intwined with the funding of more serious crime and social problems.


the whole thing is a mess but the bottom line is we need education, honesty, transparency from all parties involved and a willingness to examine this issue, as a society,without prejudice and with the best interests of everyone at risk being the top of the agenda.

talking about it in public is a start.
 
Mike_Power said:
let me get this straight: i come on here, ask for contributions, am pretty much told to fuck off, and then when i use the words of an expert who uses a national newspaper to talk about the pleasures of drugs, that's somehow wrong?
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I never told you to fuck off. Find where I did. You won't.

I never said using the words of an expert is wrong, merely reiterated that your conclusion was one I gave you to a direct question you asked. The ONLY sensible conclusion there could be.

I don't see why you're being that pissy with me.

Talk me through that.
 
Re-reading my post above I was possibly a tad bit grumpy at the time. Article was the first thing I read upon waking up with a fukkin beast of a hangover (ethanol being a far "safer" drug than street drugs and RCs naturally 8)) and was perhaps a bit too hasty in dismissing it out of hand. Reading the article again it wasn't as "bad" as I initially thought. I suspect I really am just very idealistic about the whole subject. Prohibition is the cause of problems with all drugs from "traditional" illicit drugs to emerging RCs and high-powered alcohol products.

It really is so very obvious and simple for me: legalise all drugs, save countless lives and unnecessary suffering, save untold trillions wasted on continuing to blindlessly and mindlessly follow a failed drug policy and the associated wasted time, effort, monies and social costs directly created by said stooopid policy in terms of legal, social and medical costs and instead use that unfeasibly huge amount of wasted time, money and effort on education and treatment instead. It really is that simple.

However, I do understand that after so many decades of propaganda, lies, misinformation, disinformation and brainwashing from all sides you have to start somewhere. Focussing on RCs is perhaps a way in as they are so controversial and headline-making at the moment. I do agree with Ceres that it's not really a problem with the substances per se as it is with the lack of reliable HR information, hysterical media hype and - above all - the prohibition policy itself. I just think that this is a far more important aspect of the debate to focus on than the - frankly - simplistic idea that new drugz iz just bad, m'kay? They are not necessarily any better or worse than traditional and well-known drugs. The problem with them is that - despite the name - little or no research is actually done on these substances as it is pointless cos they have such short windows of being outside of the law so who's gonna fund it or bother to investigate? Instead we get nothing but supposition, extrapolation and media witch-hunts. This is not the way forward and I wish that could've been made more clear. Quite possibly the problem is with my reading of the article as the book does sound like it could well be far more interesting.
 
I think it definately does noone any good to be at each others throats or to act like we have a hidden agenda, honesty is the best policy.

I commend Mike for what he's done because clearly it is stimulating some debate and bringing things out into the open.

I've seen a good friend die, I've seen multiple friends run into problems with drugs, I've suffered myself having been hospitalised before, I really don't have an appetite anymore for bullshit and nonsense and I want people to be safe.

Everyone needs a release and some people get on fine with drugs, many others have big problems with it, but it's not something which is going away and it calls for everyone, the government, the vendors, the individuals taking the drugs to sit down and talk openly and honestly about what's happening without fear of retribution. I dearly wish people like David Nutt or Paoulo Deluca of the Rednet project, along with substance abuse psychiatrists and the Police aswell would sit down with the rest of us and talk.
 
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I was asked to talk at that conference last year, Ceres. Didn't due to being a bit nervy about what to say. I may have the experience to know a bit about what I speak but don't really have what it takes to cut it in more academic circles. Kinda wish I'd had the balls to just go for it now though. If only for the experience and maybe the chance to get some "alternative" views on the subject out there.

And I concur that being overly cynical, condescending and confrontational does nobody any good. It's blinkered attitudes that got us into this mess. Albeit from "The Man's" side in that case. Open discussion where all sides get to have their say and - more importantly - are actually listened to and engaged is the way forward.

As I suggested elsewhere, perhaps if we feed him and walk him and train him and pet him and worm him and tickle him behind the ears once in a while we could adopt Mike as our pet journo =D
 
Ismene said:
Go back a little furthur to an article printed in the Guardian about 10 years ago called "Make heroin legal". That set the standard as far as drug writing in mainstream media.

I'll bet this as well:25I-NBOME will kill dozens more at festivals in the US and UK this summer, in acute, horrific circumstances.

First, we don't know it's killed anybody yet -it may have done, but mephedrone was down to have killing 150 people back in 2009, all those turned out to be bollocks so I'm assuming that at least 99.9% of the deaths caused by Nbomes are the same.

I'll take that bet. But I want real evidence, not just "it was reported in the Sun..."
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Source: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/2ci_nbome/2ci_nbome_death.shtml


autopsies, medical examiners, bags with 25I-NBOME on them.

Sure there's some bad reporting, and nearly all of these people overdosed, but i believe the general public is not ready for full-agonist drugs sold by the gramme that are as potent as LSD. Call that a scare story?

my larger point is that the banning of drugs makes more dangerous drugs available.

25i-NBOME only came to the market once 2CI was banned in the US in S.839. (Combating Designer Drugs Act of 2011).

Ismene, you want to paint me as a prohibitionist hack and you're simply wrong, with no credible evidence to support your position.
 
Shambles said:
I was asked to talk at that conference last year, Ceres. Didn't due to being a bit nervy about what to say. I may have the experience to know a bit about what I speak but don't really have what it takes to cut it in more academic circles. Kinda wish I'd had the balls to just go for it now though. If only for the experience and maybe the chance to get some "alternative" views on the subject out there.

And I concur that being overly cynical, condescending and confrontational does nobody any good. It's blinkered attitudes that got us into this mess. Albeit from "The Man's" side in that case. Open discussion where all sides get to have their say and - more importantly - are actually listened to and engaged is the way forward.
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You should have done it Shambles. There's actually still time.
http://pastebin.com/ALDnf34j


Shambles said:
As I suggested elsewhere, perhaps if we feed him and walk him and train him and pet him and worm him and tickle him behind the ears once in a while we could adopt Mike as our pet journo =D
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patronising twat. :-)
 
Ismene said:
Go back a little furthur to an article printed in the Guardian about 10 years ago called "Make heroin legal". That set the standard as far as drug writing in mainstream media.
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You can't really compare the two though . Heroin has been around 100s of years & was patented by Bayer in 1885 so you got a wealth of resources for good a piece of writing .

I expect i could even have a go at that. If i had to like .
 
Mike_Power said:
patronising twat. :-)
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I do my best =D

Thanks for the linky too. As you may have noticed this whole debate is a bit of a passion of mine. I'd love to be able to get more involved and at least try to do more than just bitch and whine on an intranetz forum about it. However, there are a few issues that make that difficult. In a purely practical sense I couldn't even afford to travel to such a thing. Kinda pathetic but also true. Also, I simply have no clue how such things work. I'd really need to have an inkling of the kinda thing expected of me and was only given a very nebulous outline of "just talk about your experience with these drugs" with no other guidance. I don't want to just be one of those people who tell personal anecdotes that add nothing that couldn't be found by simply reading Erowid or the BL TR forum or whatever. If I were to do anything like that I'd really want to have something to say.

But thanks anyway. I'll read up on the event, talk to my drug counsellors (who were the ones that asked me to take part) and have a think about what - if anything - I could do of any worth maybe for next year.
 
StoneHappyMonday said:
I never told you to fuck off. Find where I did. You won't.

I never said using the words of an expert is wrong, merely reiterated that your conclusion was one I gave you to a direct question you asked. The ONLY sensible conclusion there could be.

I don't see why you're being that pissy with me.

Talk me through that.
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StoneHappyMonday said:
IAside from all that Mike, and even taking into account your Mixmag article, I'd still remain very cynical about this and advise extreme caution to anyone who approaches you from here offering their words.
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that's what i'm on about. that's why i was being pissy with you - you seemed to want it both ways: to warn posters here not to talk to me, then to get sniffy me when i quoted an expert instead of a user.

Here's another piece I did. It was in the evening standard. it reports on people enjoying, then suffering brain zaps after 6-apb, and interviews owen boden jones, who runs the UK's only club drugs clinic. Does an amazing job. He's had users come in with paralysis, temporary vision loss etc, from RCs.

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle...come-to-the-world-of-legal-highs-8605721.html

So, of course, the sub-editors, whose job it it to sell the story, lead on that. If it bleeds, it leads.

Like it or not, "Man Takes Drugs And Has Quite A Good Night And Wakes Up Feeling Bit Groggy But Basically OK – Once He'd Had a Cuppa" is NOT a news story.

Dog bites man? Not news. Man bites dog? News. It's the nature of the game.

Man buys drugs online and goes blind and is paralysed? That's a story.

I agree that the main problem is lack of information: that's why I spent a year writing a 100,000 word book on how we got from the 1960s, to here - where RCs are the new chemical frontline. Books and newspapers are totally different media.

I also stand by this: most RCS are more toxic and problematic for the majority of users than their legal counterparts - if onyl because they are unknown quantities.

My book's out now. Read it and tell me what you think.

The guardian liked it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/02/drugs-web-revolution-changing-world-high

right, back to reality. laters.
 
pontifex01 said:
Hi Mike, you don't know me as I've been away from the forums for a bit. I've come back just to tell you you're a cunt
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Nice to meet you too sir/miss/ :-)

Argue this (to the four walls, cos I'm out of here).

2CI - active at 5 to 10mg, no reported deaths. Dose range fairly forgiving - people can do up to 40 or 50mg of it if they're hardheads.

25i-NBOMe, first came to market after US law banned 2CI and other phens in 2011/2012. Active at 500mcg, less. People dropping like flies in a vanishingly small user group.

Sold as a legal high/RC/whatevs. Doseages unknown, potency unknown, cause of death: unknown. Dannie Haupt much?

There's a new group of RC uses who – gasp – don't read Bluelight. They just snort whatever's in front of them.

pontifex01 said:
Knew how this was going to end before I even bothered reading the piece/thread.
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QED. Your mind is, with vast irony, rather closed.
 
Mike_Power said:
that's what i'm on about. that's why i was being pissy with you - you seemed to want it both ways: to warn posters here not to talk to me, then to get sniffy me when i quoted an expert instead of a user.
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I didn't warn anyone not to talk to you. I advised extreme caution. Harm reduction for having contact with a journalist. Been there, done that, got the scars to show. I could easily have told people not to talk and you to fuck off. Based on your mixmag article I think I treated you with a liberal approach.

I didn't get sniffy with you either. There's a cheeky little wink at the end of my post, that's a long way from sniffy. What I was pointing out was that you asked a direct simple question with only one possible answer. Quoting Adam Winstock in your conclusion is obviously going to look better for your professionalism. That's how these things work. But I don't think it would have hurt to quote some drug users saying the same thing. It is the user, after all, who the article is supposed to be concerned with.

No big deal.
 
“The drugs get posted to me and I pay by debit card. The effect of 6-APB is a bit like ecstasy. You feel hot, sweaty, friendly and bit strange by the end of the night. It’s worse if you drink booze with it. Time flies, a whole night can pass in just a few hours.”
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As opposed to those other kinda nights which can last days :D

Again, not a bad article at all - certainly an improvement over the usual Heil-style bollox anyway. I just don't think newspapers are the best way to get information out. But obviously they are always gonna be a potentially useful tool. The problem is that newspapers have an agenda and - as you note - simply will not publish anything without a suitably shocking revelation about what some poor bugger did sometime on something.

That one about the bloke ripping his scrotum off on mephedrone being my personal favourite so far. And a perfect example of why proper journalism - and am mostly of the opinion that that is what you are doing, or trying to do with the inherent restrictions of writing for mainstream media involves - is needed. Trawling forums for suitably lurid stories may be quick and easy but when they don't even bother to read enough to realise that the tablod-friendly stories concerned are spoofs it does the profession no favours. I do believe we got some of the tabloids to call MDAI "woof-woof" after somebody here suggested it as a joke =D

You are not doing that kinda "journalism" so I do think you deserve credit for that. Should I ever come across your book I will read with interest as I don't like to be as negative as I can be sometimes - especially when hungover. Have always been of the opinion that we should try to work with journalists to help get real information out there. We've been burned so often in the past that some here - quite understandably - have become totally disillusioned and confrontational as a result of the actions of the real scumbag hacks so common in your line of work though. But am personally of the opinion that each journalist should be approached according to their previous work rather than the "work" shat out by the worst examples out there.

I hope you continue writing on the subject and try to contradict the stereotype we tend to have of journalists writing about drugs. There are so very few who bother to do any research at all let alone try to inject some balance, common sense and truth that could actually move the debate on and - maybe, just maybe - help to bring about the change we can all see is needed. Isn't that what journalism is meant to be about at it's best? I really don't bother to keep up with mainstream media's coverage of the topic so any disappointment I may have about not seeing the kinda articles being written and published that I would wish for is kinda irrelevant. From the little I have seen you do seem to be a cut above the rest and I think that should be applauded and encouraged. Given the state of the rest of the media's coverage it's great to see that somebody is at least trying to.
 
Cornishman said:
Meow meow is passe - here comes woof woof, Britain's new legal street drug

EDIT: Here's the original Sun article- http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3032064/Woof-woof-is-the-new-meow-meow.html
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here's the chapter titles to my book. Note chapter 7 :-)

3094srd.jpg
 
Hey shambles,

thanks for that message. It's so easy to berate journalists, especially drug journalists, as we can become lightning rods for people's frustration over prohibition, and cluelessness.

I've noticed and will point out here that no one has found any factual inaccuracies in anything I have ever written, at all. You can disagree with me til the morning comes, and I might even change my opinion.

Being forced on to the defensive is not a good debating position, or good sense, so I'll do no more of it.

The only goal of a good journalist is to speak the truth, and in my case, to effect social and cultural change. The reason I care about drug laws is because they seem irrational, unjust, counterproductive and even immoral.

By the way, you know how the scrotum one got out, right? And have you read Narcomania, byt Max Daly and Stve Sampson? I think you'd likely know a lot of the stuff in it.
 
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