Behind the Headlines

Once upon a time a legal high caused Parkinson’s disease…

There is a widespread attitude that counts against delaying a legislative response to emergent drugs. Many punters, especially younger ones, think that chemicals are safe unless proven otherwise - that is not the case.

The health fears over legal highs are focused on what could sensibly be called a “known unknown”. Professor John Ramsey is a forensic toxicologist who runs the UK’s database of drugs. During my interview with him, he pointed at one packet of highs and said “For example, I have no way of knowing that this one won’t cause birth defects.” Home Office and EU drugs policy adviser, Dr Les King, was also on message: “as a chemist I know that all chemicals are dangerous until proven otherwise.”

There is a precedent for such concerns over the safety of these substances. A heroin substitute called MPPP, first synthesised in 1947, was still doing the rounds during the designer drug craze of the 80s.

It was found that this drug often contained an impurity called MPTP that caused a permanent Parkinsons disease-like syndrome after just one dose. A slow government response increases the amount of exposure to substances that have the potential to greatly damage public health.

This is an even greater concern given the enthusiasm that young people are showing for legal highs. The end of the Observer’s two page spread describes teenagers buying legal highs with their parents.  A quick look through the profiles of anyone posting comments on drug forums tells you how young some users are.

Recently, a disturbing new craze has evolved that demonstrates how deeply ingrained drugs culture has become. School kids are now snorting sherbert and crushed up love hearts in emulation of cocaine-users. You can see some youtube videos of this craze here and here.

In the absence of a proper method of regulating legal highs, and given the level of ignorance about them, legislative delays can only add to the risks of a hazardous pastime.

Matt Bardo

Bolting horses, slamming doors

When Dr Alexander Shulgin (above) wrote his 1991 book about falling in love while dosed up on phenethylamines with his wife, he encapsulated the image of the clandestine chemist, a glorious hippy, perfecting his chemical recipes.

The Government didn’t like it one bit. The fuss caused by Shulgin’s book led to 36 substances being banned in the UK in 1998, even though there was little evidence that they were being widely used.  The then Home Secretary, George Howarth, said: “These measures will slam the stable door firmly shut before the horse has bolted.” You can read the report here. 36 doors might have slammed loudly but the horse was long-gone.

The basics of what Shulgin advanced continues today - the tweaking of chemicals to make the highs legal. But sparked by the internet, it has become a global industry. The new breed of legal highs are well researched and, experts say, increasingly potent.

Legal highs have traditionally been sold through “headshops”, shopping outlets that specialise in the sale of drugs and drug paraphernalia. There are said to be more and more of them appearing in UK cities. But one of the biggest cultural shifts is the internet.

An entire online community has emerged in which you can learn about the latest drugs. Check out the Bluelight forum or erowid.org. There are even facebook groups devoted to the next big chemical thing.  Some new substances on the scene today stand to change the nature of drug dealing. Increasingly legal highs are not just imitators of illegal drugs, they are respected recreational drugs in their own right.

The recent arrival of Mephedrone, or methylmethcathinone, is a good example. It has only been on the monitors’ lists for around the last year but already it is making a big impact.  Druglink, the magazine of DrugScope, is asking whether Mephedrone is the future of drug-dealing. 27 year-old Londoner, Dave said: “I pretty much stopped buying coke and pills and crystal [MDMA] once I found meph. I’d just bulk order and send off the payment and the package would arrive a few days later.”  The old type of drugs-regulation cannot be applied to this new world - and a new approach is needed to regulate their sale, without necessarily making them illegal.

Matt Bardo

Salvia drags legal highs back into the spotlight

Legal highs are back in the press and this time they could cause a stir. Last week the Observer ran a double-page spread on them and it all seems to have been sparked by some noise from across the pond.

Salvia hit the US headlines last January when North Dakota’s Kenneth Rau (below) became the first person in America to be charged with its possession.

Salvia is a drug that comes from a the plant “Salvia Divinorum”, which is indigenous to Mexico. In days gone by, it was used in shamanic rituals.  But today, it is popular among the youtube generation with those who are searching for altered mental states. When chewed or smoked salvia generates short-term but very intense hallucinogenic effects.

The drug has been known about for some time. You can watch BBC Inside Out’s 2007 take on it here. The Labour MP, John Mann has tried unsuccessfully to get the substance banned in the UK. Across the pond, the story has been quite different.

A campaign against salvia exploded in the US when a teenager called Brett Chidester killed himself in 2006. His mother blamed the drug for his death and has said that bringing salvia under regulation across the US will be her son’s legacy. The legislation that bans salvia has been dubbed “Brett’s Law”.

Phil Woolas from the Home Office was asked a question on it in parliament last week. He said:

“My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has recently written to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs [ACMD] requesting that it provide advice to Government on the availability and harms of psychoactive legal alternatives to illegal drugs, so called “legal highs”, with a particular focus on protecting young people. I fully anticipate that this work will include Salvia Divinorum. The Government’s position on its control will be informed by Advisory Council’s advice.”

The ACMD are due to report on their initial findings next month. If the ACMD do attempt to estimate the size and value of the UK legal high industry, it is likely to gain some column width.

Matt Bardo

Glacial speed of GBL regulation

A drug that is associated with rape, coma and death is not usually legal. Yet the only restriction on the UK trade in GBL is an EU Voluntary Monitoring list through which the chemical industry reports suspicious orders/transactions to the competent national authorities.

After the Daily Telegraph ran their front page splash about the death of Hester Stewart, the Home Office told them:

“We will consult the chemical industry and the wider public on this subject over the coming months on this issue.”

What didn’t appear in the papers is that GBL is a known legal loophole that has been firmly on the legislative radar for years.

In 2000 the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke, having told MPs that taking GBL had the same effect as taking GHB, went on to tell MPs about what had happened in America:

“The federal decision to ban GHB and GBL was taken only this year. Before that, GHB - but not GBL - was banned in a number of American states. Where it was banned, there was evidence that GBL was widely misused in its place. That is why it is important to tackle the two side by side.”

Then, in 2006, an Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs report on GBL recommended that it be brought under the Misuse of Drugs Act as a class C substance. A spokesman told me: “Having controlled GHB we felt it was necessary to control GBL.”

And in October 2008, Joan Ryan proposed a Bill to bring GBL under the Misuse of Drugs Act after she spoke to a constituent who had nearly died when her drink was spiked.

She told MPs:

“I do not seek to deny that GBL has legitimate uses, and I accept that it is widely used as an industrial solvent. What I find difficult to believe, however, is that an industrial solvent being sold in bottles of 250 ml to private citizens in central London, with same-day delivery, is actually being used for legitimate industrial purposes. What needs to happen, and what my Bill provides for, is an end to the open market for GBL.”

Her bill went through a first reading last November but has since been delayed again.  Today, GBL is a banned substance in America, Canada and Sweden but (still) remains legal in this country.

Matt Bardo

The algebra of highs: GHB + GBL = Loophole

When our investigation into legal club drugs began, we read up on a drug called GHB. It’s a controlled substance in the UK, registered under the Misuse of Drugs Act as a class C drug - you might have heard it referred to as “liquid ecstasy”, “ liquid G” or “firewater”.

If you are caught in possession of GHB, you can be arrested. But a perfectly legal substance that will have the same effect is also available. It’s called GBL, it can be traded legally and last Wednesday, it killed a 21 year old student in Brighton.

On 29 April, the Daily Telegraph ran with a story about Hester Stewart, a 21 year old who died after taking GBL (below). “Why is killer party drug legal?” they asked.

GBL is an industrial solvent. It has a range of uses, appearing for example in nail varnish remover pads. But when ingested, it turns into GHB in the body. And that means it’s open to abuse as a legal equivalent of GHB.

Professor John Ramsey, who runs a national drug identification database called TICTAC Communications, is an expert in emergent substances. He said that for all intents and purposes, GBL and GHB are the same thing. In 2007 TICTAC figures revealed that more than half the doses of GHB being sold in nightclubs were in fact GBL.

At low doses, GHB/GBL cause euphoria, sociability and increased libido in users. At medium doses, they produce a strong hypnotic effect. At higher doses, they can cause coma and death. It is often smuggled around in drinks bottles. At TICTAC we saw several examples of what were ostensibly sports drinks, that actually contained GHB/GBL. One dose can be obtained for as little as 10 pence.

The Emergency Department at St Thomas’ Hospital, London treats many of those who have been poisoned by party drugs during a night out at Vauxhall’s clubs. According to one study listed by the ACMD report on GBL, of the 1119 patient presentations with poisoning, 158 (14%) were for GHB/GBL intoxication. That represents 38% of all drugs of abuse.

View Ambulance route in a larger map

To obtain the desired effect, the dosage of GBL needs to be precisely administered – too much can kill, especially when it interacts with alcohol. To complicate this calculation even further, the concentration of GHB or GBL varies depending on what has been done to the drugs.

Because GHB/GBL is colourless, odourless and only has a mild salty taste, it is easily used to spike drinks. It has been widely linked to date rape.

This brilliant video from knowghb.org.uk shows the effects of GHB:

Matt Bardo

Changing the law to tackle counterfeiters

A number of methods have been used over the past four years to deal with the growing problem of counterfeit and smuggled vodka.

One of those has been through tackling the counterfeit black market, which is estimated to cost the taxpayer £8bn pounds a year, through legislation and increased operational activities.

In 2001 consumer minister Melanie Johnson made a pledge of no tolerance for sellers of counterfeit goods, including vodka.

Later that year Vince Cable, the man heralded as the Liberal Democrats economics expert, stood up in Parliament and introduced the Copyright and Trade Marks (Offences and Enforcement) Bill.

The bill was passed in July 2002 making it into an Act of Parliament. It is a broad piece of legislation meant to cover a number of issues including the use of brand names on counterfeit goods.

Before the introduction of the Act producers and manufacturers with intellectual property rights to trademarks, such as Glen’s vodka only could only pursue counterfeiters through the civil courts.

The effect of the Act was to make it a criminal offence to sell goods, packaging or labels bearing a trademark that had been applied without the consent of the trade mark owner.

It amended the s.92 of the Trademarks Act 1994 and is now used by trading standards officers when they bring a prosecution against retailers for selling counterfeit products.

Balihar Khalsa

Trading standards - a regional perspective

At a national level the approach to dealing with smuggled, fraudulent and counterfeit vodka revolves around the amount of money lost through tax evasion.

From a regional perspective, counterfeit vodka is a problem because of the consumer related issues that have emerged from it. Instead of focusing on fiscal issues, regional trading standards teams are concerned with health and safety.

Trading standards are responsible for protecting the interests of honest business and consumers.

If someone buys a bottle of vodka they suspect to be counterfeit, trading standards will normally be the first point of contact. Many of the cases that have been reported on have emerged from trading standards prosecution.

Once someone suspects that they believe their vodka to be counterfeit, trading standards will investigate and bring a prosecution where necessary.

The case will be brought against the retailer of the product rather than the people who are making and distributing counterfeit vodka.

A recent example of this level of enforcement took place in Islington earlier this year.

In January, four off-licences were fined over £6,000 between them for the sale of counterfeit vodka, after someone who bought the illegal product complained to the council.

Brian Gohery, one of the trading standards officers involved in the case explained that since the prosecution of the off-licences the council have actively gone out to shops and created a presence.

He said: “Information was sent out to all the local shops and trading standards will be visiting independent off-licences.

“Many traders were pleased to trading standards, as they have been offered the goods, but refused them.”

The alarm will often be raised when someone has bought a bottle of vodka which doesn’t smell or taste right. It is only after someone has bought a counterfeit product that they will be able to tell whether the vodka is counterfeit or not.

Balihar Khalsa

Duty stamps - an attempt to reduce alcohol fraud

Duty stamps on the sale of alcohol stronger than 30 per cent was introduced in April 2006 as part of a range of measures designed to prevent fraud.

Alcohol fraud is moving duty-free goods from warehouse to warehouse to avoid paying excise tax.

The recommendation to introduce the measure was originally made in the Roques Report on excise diversion fraud, which was an attempt at examining the extent of the problem and a number of ways to stop the activity.

Out of 62 suggestions the government decided to adopt 44 of them, one of those being the duty stamp scheme.

A consultation with industry representatives took place in 2001. From that process, it emerged that the introduction of a new taxation scheme would place a heavy financial burden on wholesalers and retailers, and there was resistance to the measure.

Representatives claimed that the cost of the scheme would be disproportionate to the benefits and offered a range of alternative suggestions. However, the government decided to press ahead with duty stamps after an estimate that the Exchequer had lost £600m to spirit fraud and that was a trend set to continue.

Despite the introduction of duty stamps as a means of tracing duty paid goods, counterfeiters are now reproducing fake versions of the stamps to get around the rules.

Balihar Khalsa

Tackling spirit fraud - government and industry

Spirit fraud entered the spotlight in 2005 when the government introduced a number of measures to tackle the problem.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was one of those measures. It is an agreement between government and various trade bodies including: The Gin and Vodka Association, The Scotch Whisky Association and The Wine and Spirits Trade Association.

Edwin Atkinson, director of the Gin and Vodka Association, speaking in 2005, said: “UK spirits producers will be actively working with HMRC to tackle the spirits fraud problem.

“Particularly the large scale organised freight diversion frauds, which deprive the government of millions of pounds of revenue each year.”

Each year the MoU is amended and renewed in order to maintain the information sharing relationship between the regulators and the alcohol sector.

However, a report produced by HMRC earlier this year indicated that the MoUs have not been as successful as was expected. The ‘Alcohol Activity Report’ published in January said:

“The usefulness of information was generally low as it contained little risk information or information that HMRC was not already obtaining from other industry sources.”

The revelation has led to a renegotiation of the terms putting more of an emphasis on fraud, rather than distribution and supply chains.

One of the main problems that emerged in the run-up to the introduction of the MoU was the disparity between estimates of the amount of money that was being lost in spirit fraud.

HMRC estimates were much higher than the trade associations and no conclusive figures were available to demonstrate the amount of money being lost through the fraudulent spirit trade.

Balihar Khalsa

Mephedrone and methylone’s legal status and do they signal a global drug law divide?

Full names

Methylone - 3,4-methylenedioxymethcathinone

Mephedrone - 4-Methylmethcathinone

These drugs are new on the scene and are the result of the rising flow of legal high money funding increasingly intelligent clandestine chemists.

Most countries have done nothing to prohibit these two specific drugs.  The countries where these drugs are illegal are the ones that have general generic drug laws that the emergent drugs have automatically fallen under.

The Law - Mephedrone

Mephedrone could be considered prohibited, due to the broad substance analogue laws, in USA, Australia and New Zealand. While in 2008, after several alleged incidents, which included deaths among teenagers, Sweden framed specific legislation making the sale of mephedrone illegal. As far as our research tells us, no other country prohibits the sale or use of mephedrone.

The Law - Methylone

Methylone is a very similar story. The US, Sweden and the ANZAC countries’ wide-reaching laws prohibit the drug as either an “ampetamine analogue” or as “substantially similar” to methcathinone. Again, as far as we can tell, no other countries legislate against the drug.

A drug law divide?

This difference in the nature of the drug laws in different countries and areas could show how shifting political allegiances and differences permeate so many different areas of public life.

The US, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are historically close allies. All four have traditionally aimed for generic, wide-reaching and long lasting drug laws that cover all the analogous families of prohibited drugs.

European countries have historically had drug-specific laws on a case by case basis - shown by its recent specific recommendations on BZP.

While the UK has prevaricated over BZP, the failure of its laws to cover mephedrone or methylone may signal that as the UK has moved towards Europe politically, its drug legislation is making a similar shift.

George Arbuthnott