THUMP: How difficult is it trying to conduct research on clubbers that are taking drugs?
Professor Fiona Measham: I've been doing research for twenty five years and I've never really had any problems at all. Once people believe that you're not a police officer – fortunately I don't look like I could be, I'm tiny and not threatening – most people are happy to talk to me. But the main proviso is that you have to get them early on in the evening before they've really got into the drug use, you don't want to get them in the middle when they're off their heads and just wanting to dance. When I speak to people on Monday mornings that's always interesting as they usually have a very different perspective to Friday night.
How do you conduct your research?
At the moment I've got my special laser which I use to test drugs at clubs and festivals. I give my findings back to emergency services on site and also to users. The Warehouse Project in Manchester, where I do a lot of my research, has a welfare team that will ensure information gets around. So for example, last Saturday night seven friends had thought they'd bought ketamine and they were having a terrible time, with several having to go to hospital: when I tested it I found out it was actually methoxetamine. As soon as I tested we could put warnings out on the Warehouse Project socials that methoxetamine is being mis-sold as ketamine. The problem with that is that ketamine is thirty minutes of mild hallucinations while methoxetamine is 2 or 3 hours of major hallucinations.
THUMP: How difficult is it trying to conduct research on clubbers that are taking drugs?
Professor Fiona Measham: I've been doing research for twenty five years and I've never really had any problems at all. Once people believe that you're not a police officer – fortunately I don't look like I could be, I'm tiny and not threatening – most people are happy to talk to me. But the main proviso is that you have to get them early on in the evening before they've really got into the drug use, you don't want to get them in the middle when they're off their heads and just wanting to dance. When I speak to people on Monday mornings that's always interesting as they usually have a very different perspective to Friday night.
How do you conduct your research?
At the moment I've got my special laser which I use to test drugs at clubs and festivals. I give my findings back to emergency services on site and also to users. The Warehouse Project in Manchester, where I do a lot of my research, has a welfare team that will ensure information gets around. So for example, last Saturday night seven friends had thought they'd bought ketamine and they were having a terrible time, with several having to go to hospital: when I tested it I found out it was actually methoxetamine. As soon as I tested we could put warnings out on the Warehouse Project socials that methoxetamine is being mis-sold as ketamine. The problem with that is that ketamine is thirty minutes of mild hallucinations while methoxetamine is 2 or 3 hours of major hallucinations.
Did you face any difficulties in getting the government to agree to the scheme?
Some people within the Home Office were not particularly supportive of the drug testing at the WHP last year. Which is one of the reasons The Loop bought the machine themselves and got permission and support from the local police and the club. It's politicians that are wary of any drugs testing proposals.
Has there been a rise in ecstasy use of late?
There's definitely been a renewed interested in ecstasy in the current generation. If you look at the national surveys, use hasn't decreased massively: there was an increase since the 1990s up to a peak in 2002 and then it's only very slightly gone down since then. At that point, I think there was a sense that ecstasy was an old fashioned drug and it was a bit naff to be gurning in the corner. Gone were the days of people hugging strangers.
So is there any truth to the seemingly widespread belief that “pills were better back in the day” or is it a popular myth?
When I first started doing research it was £15 for one tablet, although it did use to be 100mg content. Over the 90s, the MDMA content went down and so did the price: first to £10, then to £5 and eventually 3 for £10. So as the price went down and down so did the MDMA content until we got to the point in 2008/9 in the UK and across Europe where there wasn't a lot of MDMA in ecstasy tablets and at the same time you had the rise of MDMA crystal which sort of a response to that. At some point they reached the low of a pound a pill.
What's interesting now is that the average purity of ecstasy tablets in the UK has gone up by 5 times in 5 years: an average of 20mg in 2009 to 100 mg now. So it's true in a way.
Has that been a response to trends in the US do you think?
The US seem to be lagging behind us in terms of drugs and music, I think they're going through what we went through 10 or 15 years ago. They're on their second summer of love and we're on our fourth or something. There's definitely a high demand for ecstasy in the US at the moment but for much of the 90s it was quite difficult to get ecstasy into the US in any significant amount.
I remember having American students come to the UK who’d go to Manchester because they wanted to go clubbing and they couldn't believe how easily available ecstasy was in the UK and how relatively cheap it was. And people still think that. I go to drug conferences around the world and my colleagues will ask me about the price of drugs in the UK and they're always gobsmacked by the low cost and availability of MDMA.
Why is that?
We're a stone’s throw from the Netherlands where much of Europe's supply of MDMA is produced and also you can never underestimate the Great British public’s voracious demand for MDMA.
How much change is there between the top five club drugs?
It depends on where you go. I do research every summer in London gay clubs and in Vauxhall mephedrone has been the most popular drug for the past five years. Whereas if you went to the Warehouse Project or most mainstream clubs it would be mostly ecstasy and you'd hardly ever find GBL or mephedrone.
Why is that?
Well when I ask clubbers in Vauxhall, they tell me that it's short lasting, it's a stimulant and it's great for sex. I think it's down to the different functions of different drugs. So the people I spoke to there were more interested in drugs that are good for sex whereas the people I spoke to at the WHP were taking drugs for dancing.
But in Vauxhall the quantities consumed over the course of the weekend is much more because people are staying out sometimes from Friday right through until Sunday evening. I've got a great photograph of a guy in a crazy black and white stripy outfit who I knew hadn't been to bed all weekend because you couldn't miss him each night I went down there. I asked him why he hadn't changed outfits, he replied that he couldn’t because his mum had made his outfit for him and she'd sewn him into it so he couldn't take it off.
Final question, have you ever come across a simulator called Drugwars?
I've not, I've never actually played any video game.
Fair enough, I suppose you'd probably want to do something unrelated to your work in your leisure time.
Actually I probably would want to, that makes it more interesting to me. I drive my family mad because I'm 24/7 obsessed with drugs, that's all I talk about.
from - http://thump.vice.com/en_uk/words/w...hos-spent-25-years-researching-drugs-in-clubs
