Drugs are on my mind this week — and on my doorstep. After a night out clubbing, my two daughters, aged 19 and 20, tell me that the stimulant Meow Meow has arrived in the area, and if it has reached our sleepy market town in the Cotswolds then I suspect it is in your neighbourhood as well.
Meow Meow (mephedrone) is easily, and legally, bought over the internet where it is often advertised as plant feed. When taken as a tablet, or snorted as a powder, it gives a similar high to Ecstasy and abuse has taken off in the UK over the past couple of years.
The drug is likely to be one of the first items on the agenda for Professor Les Iversen*, the Government’s new drugs czar. Other “legal highs” such as BZP (a derivative of a worming agent) and GBL (paint stripper) have now been reclassified as Class C drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but mephedrone — and a similar drug, salvia or “herbal ecstasy” (the leaves of the Mexican plant Salvia divinorum) — are now under review.
In the meantime, should parents be worried about Meow Meow?
Not a lot is known about the drug. It has been linked to one death so far in the UK — a 14-year old girl who took it at a party near Brighton — and there have been a number of people admitted to hospital with bizarre side-effects, including a teenage boy, who is reported to have had such severe hallucinations that he ripped off his scrotum.
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It is difficult to put these reports in context without knowing how many people are using mephedrone and how they are taking it. It is not unusual for legal highs to be taken with copious amounts of alcohol and/or other drugs, including ketamine (known as Milton Keynes when mixed with mephedrone). Add in the inevitable variations in quality that occur with any black market drug, and it is very difficult to find out what people are actually taking.
Users of Meow Meow report an amphetamine-type euphoria that comes with mental and physical stimulation, talkativeness and feelings of empathy. Physical changes include dilated pupils, increased heart rate and blood pressure, sweating, flushing and goose bumps.
And, despite the scrotum ripping story, most don’t report any significant hallucinations.
The effects start to become noticeable within half an hour of taking a tablet or within a couple of minutes of snorting the drug and last for anything up to four hours (less if snorted).
The downside includes a strong desire to take more, rapid changes in body temperature (sweating or chills), paranoia, palpitations, panic attacks and muscle spasms. A hangover the next morning tends not to be too much of a problem and it is not known whether Meow Meow is addictive — although a number of cases have started to trickle through into NHS drug treatment centres.
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Although it is now legal to take the drug, it is illegal to supply it for human consumption which is why most suppliers advertise it as “plant food”. A Google search revealed more than 52,000 hits for the drug in the UK. I have advised my daughters to steer clear of the stuff (although both are at university and well past the age where they take too much notice of what I say).
Even if Meow Meow is comparatively safe, there is always the worry that it could be the start of a slippery slope. The evidence that legal highs, or “soft” drugs such as cannabis, lead to an inexorable path to more dangerous substances such as heroin, is patchy. It may in some, but will not in most.
Only time will tell how how risky mephedrone abuse really is. Many young people regard today’s concerns as propaganda, but it took decades to discover that cocaine (which used to be legal and an ingredient in Coca-Cola) is nowhere near as harmless as many users still believe.
A recent study in Spain into nearly 700 sudden deaths found that cocaine was responsible for around 1 in 30 of them — all of them in people under 45.
Drug abuse is endemic. If your son or daughter has not experimented with at least one drug then I guarantee that he or she will be mixing with people who have. But while drug abuse may be every parent’s nightmare, the vast majority of young people who try them will emerge unscathed from their dabbling.
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And while focusing on drugs we risk looking past the dangers of alcohol. It may be only natural to worry about your child trying drugs, but the most dangerous one of all, in terms of its impact on the nation’s health, is both legal and freely available. And, unlike Meow Meow, likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
*In a rather confusing move, the Government sacked the widely respected David Nutt as its key adviser on drugs after he questioned the tightening of legislation on cannabis — only to replace him with someone who once called for its legalisation.