Teenagers' 'mephedrone deaths' not drug related

androoo

androoo

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Toxicology tests have shown that two teenagers whose deaths were linked to mephedrone had not taken the drug.

The deaths of Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, in March 2010 sparked concern about the synthetic stimulant, which was then legal.

The Labour government banned the so-called "legal high" in April, making it a Class B drug alongside amphetamines and cannabis.

But tests have revealed there were no traces of mephedrone in their blood.

It is thought further tests are being conducted to try to establish what, if any, substances the pair had taken.

Humberside Police, which carried out the initial investigation into the teenagers' deaths, said in March it had "information to suggest these deaths are linked to M-CAT".

Its statement went on to say: "We would encourage anyone who may have taken the drug to attend a local hospital as a matter of urgency."

At the time, police believed the pair had been drinking and had also taken methadone - a similar-sounding but completely different drug to mephedrone.

On Friday, a spokeswoman said the force could not confirm or deny the results of the toxicology tests.

She said: "The pathology report, which includes toxicology findings, is prepared on behalf of the coroner and is not yet complete.

"The findings of the report, once completed, will be forwarded to the coroner and may be discussed at any inquest and will not be disclosed without the authority of HM Coroner."

North East Lincolnshire Coroners Court has refused to comment ahead of the inquest.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10184803.stm
 
androoo said:
Its statement went on to say: "We would encourage anyone who may have taken the drug to attend a local hospital as a matter of urgency."

At the time, police believed the pair had been drinking and had also taken methadone - a similar-sounding but completely different drug to mephedrone.
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Really? They're telling anyone who's taken mephedrone to go to a hospital? What an unneccesary burden on the healthcare system that would be, you know, if drug users actually payed attention to what the police and the government say about drugs.

I bet that it'll end up being that they took methadone and the cops who got the call just misheard it or are stupid or both.
 
I knew it. And I'm sure there'll be more Toxicology reports that conclude the same or similar circumstances (there's atleast one other death that wasn't down to Meph when it was first said it was).

Gah... :|
 
updated a little more since this afternoon

Toxicology tests have shown that two teenagers whose deaths were linked to mephedrone had not taken the drug.

The deaths of Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, in March 2010 sparked concern about the synthetic stimulant, which was then legal.

The Labour government banned the "legal high" in April, making it a Class B drug.

Former chief drugs adviser Prof David Nutt said the test results undermined the reasons behind the ban.

But Professor Les Iverson, the current chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said the decision to recomment a ban on mephedrone was based on "thorough research".

It is thought further tests are being conducted to try to establish what, if any, substances the pair had taken.

Mephedrone - also known as Meow, Bubbles and M-CAT - is derived from cathinone, a compound found in a plant called Khat.

Humberside Police, which carried out the initial investigation into the teenagers' deaths, said in March it had "information to suggest these deaths are linked to M-CAT".

Its statement went on to say: "We would encourage anyone who may have taken the drug to attend a local hospital as a matter of urgency."

At the time, police believed the pair, both from Scunthorpe, had been drinking and had also taken methadone - a similar-sounding but completely different drug to mephedrone.

On Friday, a spokeswoman said the force could not confirm or deny the results of the toxicology tests.

She said: "The pathology report, which includes toxicology findings, is prepared on behalf of the coroner and is not yet complete.

"The findings of the report, once completed, will be forwarded to the coroner and may be discussed at any inquest and will not be disclosed without the authority of HM Coroner."

North East Lincolnshire Coroners Court has refused to comment ahead of the inquest.
Political aspects

At the time, the ban on mephedrone - which catagorised it alongside amphetamines and cannabis - caused a row amongst some politicians and scientists.

The Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) had recommended a ban, saying the substance was "likely to be harmful" despite incomplete research.
Analysis
Danny Shaw
BBC home affairs correspondent

Until Louis Wainwright and Nicholas Smith died most people hadn't heard of mephedrone.

But the teenagers' deaths, moving interviews with their parents and police warnings about the drug changed all that.

Suddenly there was an urgency to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' review into mephedrone, which it had embarked on several months earlier.

A fortnight after the teenagers died, the ACMD's review was completed: its recommendation that mephedrone should be banned was immediately accepted by the then Home Secretary, Alan Johnson.

It all happened before the election, prompting claims that the ban was a political move and ministers should have waited for further evidence.

These latest developments will fuel those accusations: but the evidence gathered by the ACMD about the dangers of mephedrone pointed towards a ban - regardless of the tragic events in Scunthorpe.
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But the leading medical journal The Lancet questioned the ban, saying it had been rushed and politics had been allowed to "contaminate" science.

Two members of the committee quit in quick succession during the row.

One of them, Eric Carlin, told BBC Radio 4's PM programme the decision to ban the drug should be "revisited" in light of the findings, and the "public health consequences" of the ban needed to be considered.

"The fact these two people died and it's not actually connected with mephedrone just emphasises the fact that we were under a lot of pressure to ban this drug and these cases were actually cited as being examples of why that was necessary," he said.

Prof Nutt, who was sacked by the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson in October 2009, said the findings were "embarrassing" for the government, media and police.

"If these reports are true, the previous government's rush to ban mephedrone never had any serious scientific credibility - it looks much more like a decision based on a short term electoral calculation.

"This news demonstrates why it's so important to base drug classification on the evidence, not fear, and why the police, media and politicians should only make public prouncements once the facts are clear."

ACMD chief Prof Iverson said: "The ACMD gathered evidence from a number of experts and thoroughly researched the cathinones including mephedrone before making its recommendation.

"On the basis of this evidence, and in comparison with similar substances, it concluded that the harms associated with cathinones equate to other dangerous substances in Class B, particularly amphetamines which are structurally similar and act on the central nervous system in the same way."

Mephedrone has been implicated in the deaths of 34 people in the UK - 26 in England and eight in Scotland.

But so far, the drug has been established as a cause of death in only one case in England, that of John Stirling Smith.

On Thursday, a coroner in Brighton said Mr Stirling Smith, who was 46 and had underlying health problems, died after after "injecting mephedrone repeatedly".

The European Union has also ordered a report into the health and social risks of mephedrone from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
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Professor David Nutt: Police conjecture boosted mephedrone hysteria

[size=+1]Professor David Nutt: Police conjecture boosted mephedrone hysteria[/size]
By Andrew M Brown
Last updated: May 29th, 2010

I’m delighted to report that Professor David Nutt, the courageous drugs expert, has started a blog. The first entry considers the unhelpful role of the police in ramping up media hysteria about mephedrone, in their statements concerning the “Scunthorpe Two”. These were the two young men who supposedly died of mephedrone poisoning but who, it now turns out, had no trace of mephedrone in their systems. They had, however, consumed large amounts of alcohol.

At the time Humberside police — such as Detective Chief Inspector Mark Oliver in a press conference here — really went to town on the perceived menace of “M-Cat” or mephedrone and the media eagerly reported the concerns. Quite properly, DCI Oliver says he must wait for the toxicology. But then in the next breath it becomes perfectly clear he suspects mephedrone is behind the deaths. It seems a classic instance of police over-reaching themselves.

Anyway, the Labour government hastily made mephedrone into a Class B drug — with severe penalties for sale or use — on the basis of little more than a few unsubstantiated scare stories about how lethal it was. And, all the while, as David Nutt points out, good old alcohol kills one young person every day just through poisoning, let alone accidents etc.

Professor Nutt says lesson number one that needs to be learnt from this “debacle” is “that the police should not make pronouncements and certainly not hold press conferences on mere conjecture.” Second, “the media should wait for evidence and allow the scientific process to take place before claiming harms of new legal highs.” And third: that the government should have the courage to let the truth drive policy. Some hope, you may think.

Lastly, he says: The message must be conveyed to anyone who drinks and takes drugs that alcohol itself is very toxic (killing by acute poisoning, hundreds of young people each year through stopping breathing) and these actions are magnified when in combination with other drugs that lower breathing. If you do consider taking drugs whilst drunk then avoid at all costs other sedative drugs such as opioids and GHB/GBL.

One newspaper, as it happens, did not dive headlong into the mindless and ovine mephedrone hysteria: the Telegraph. This newspaper ran my article “Let’s be honest about ‘party drugs‘”. And Dr Max Pemberton even tried the stuff, all in the good cause of informing the reader: his article was titled “I took mephedrone and I liked it“.

The rushed and intemperate response to mephedrone proved that, in our age, political expediency, and the need to pacify shrill and unreflective sections of the media, trump science and reason. Let us hope that, with a new government, this will change.


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/a...olice-conjecture-boosted-mephedrone-hysteria/
 
monstanoodle said:
Good article there zark :)
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Word :) Hope people took the time to read Prof Nutt's blog linked in the above article. The man speaks sense (although I did disagree with his recommendation to criminalise Ketamine on the basis of seemingly localised examples of renal / bladder / urinary problems)

Also check out Eric Carlin's blog regarding mephedrone. Another sense-talking ex-ACMD dude. http://ericcarlin.wordpress.com/

According to his blog, the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson changed the fucking law on the basis of a report which hadn’t even been completed. Which actually contradicts part of the BBC article above. Just proves that the media and police were complicit in the Government's corrupt reign...
 
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Are you surprised though?? In Australia, like the UK, policy is driven by the media, nothing more, nothing less.

Politicians leak policy and gauge public interest through the media. Or the media pushing policy through its papers.

The reason why Weed will be legalisted in the US soon, is because it finally has a media backing. In our concervative and tabliod circles though, until the market becomes lucrative, policy just wont change..

There is a blog which i read which basically covers this media/policy area:

http://theaustralianheroindiaries.blogspot.com/

Good read if u get a chance!
 
I get the feeling they probably did a line of MDPV thinking it was mephedrone or methylone. It would be so easy to do.
 
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