Should legal drug mephedrone be banned?

[CatInASuit]

The upcoming drug of choice or so the news says is "meow meow" or mephedrone. It is currently a legal drug which gives a high equivalent to ecstacy and it is rapidly gaining a reputation. It causes euphoria and hallucinations but side effects include raised blood pressure and paranoia. The long term side effects are unknown.

It has now been linked to several deaths in the UK Club scene where it tends to be cut with other substances like Ketamine.

More on the drug here and story details here.

So what, if anything, should be done about it

Would education around the dangers of the drug be a worthwhile cause?

Should we just let natural Darwinism take effect and allow it to kill off and damage a generation of takers?

Or should the government step in and ban the substance?

[ivan astikov]

Well, whatever the pros and cons of the actual drug may be, unscrupulous bastards are still going to make "bootleg" copies of this stuff, knowing that customers can't exactly inform Trading Standards organisations about it.

[OneCentStamp]

I think it should be treated like alcohol: restricted to a reasonable minimum age, purity and strength verified by a regulatory agency, punishments put in place for those who behave dangerously or antisocially under the influence.

But then again, I feel that way about 95% of drugs.

[What Exit?]

Whatever it is, legalize it and tax it and treat those abusing it but don't arrest them. Or, OneCentStamp and I share basically the same view.

[redtail]

And one more. I'll add to that - provide realistic, understandable information regarding dangers & symptoms.

[Cluricaun]

Sigh. If people are going to do it now, they're going to do it later. Besides the fact that I'm in agreement with OCS and What Exit? it's also important to remember that if it goes underground it gets more dangerous. There is less quality control, more illicit tampering, and the distribution point becomes dudes with guns.

The majority of "heroin overdoses" are actually acute quinine poisoning, since quinine tastes pretty much exactly like heroin and so it's the cut of choice to stretch out a supply and it's also quite toxic and can in and of itself cause pulmonary edema when injected.

"Street drugs" will always be more dangerous overall than legal drugs.

[Exy]

The majority of "heroin overdoses" are actually acute quinine poisoning

Is that true? I'd be surprised if it were easy enough to get a hold of large amounts of quinine that it would make sense to step on your heroin with it.

[Cluricaun]

Is that true? I'd be surprised if it were easy enough to get a hold of large amounts of quinine that it would make sense to step on your heroin with it.

From here:

"This theory argues that death is not a consequence of any pharmacological activity of heroin per se, but is due to the presence of toxic contaminants in the heroin (e.g. Louria et al., 1967; Ruttenber & Luke, 1984). Toxicological analyses have detected the presence of contaminants, usually quinine, either in heroin samples or at autopsy (Cherubin et al., 1972; Monforte, 1977; Ruttenber &Luke, 1984). Cherubin et al., (1972) reported the presence of quinine in 19% of fatal New York City cases. Ruttenber & Luke (1984) reported a relationship between heroin deaths and the amount of quinine in street packages of heroin. Monforte (1977) reported the presence of quinine in 57% of cases in Michigan."

I suppose if you can get your hands on a large supply of heroin that getting your hands on a large supply of quinine would be relatively simple.

[Zuul]

The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs:

Dr. Helpern's associate, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Baden, went on to further discredit the already implausible overdose theory at a joint meeting of two American Medical Association drug-dependency committees held in Palo Alto, California, in February 1969.

"The majority of deaths," Dr. Baden told the AMA physicians, "are due to an acute reaction to the intravenous injection of the heroin-quinine-sugar mixture. This type of death is often referred to as an 'overdose,' which is a misnomer. Death is not due to a pharmacological overdose in the vast majority of cases."

...

One theory sometimes advanced is that Syndrome X deaths are caused by the quinine in the bag. Quinine was introduced as an adulterant of heroin sometime after 1939, when an epidemic of malaria spread by contaminated injection needles hit New York City addicts 40 thus the time of introduction fits the Syndrome X timetable. Some addicts discovered that the quinine contributed to the sensation known as a "rush" immediately after injection. Heroin traffickers also discovered that the bitter taste of the quinine makes it impossible for addicts to gauge the concentration of heroin in the bag by tasting the mixture. For these and possibly other reasons, quinine has remained a standard adulterant of New York City heroin ever since.

Perhaps the first suggestion that quinine might be causing New York City's Syndrome X deaths came from Dr. F. E. Camps, the United Kingdom Home Office pathologist in charge of investigating opiate deaths in England. At a conference of the Society for the Study of Addiction held in London in September 1966 (which Chief Medical Examiner Helpern attended), Dr. Camps stated: "The only comparable drug to heroin which causes rapid death with pulmonary edema is quinine. In this case patients start off with discomfort in their chest, and then rapidly die. It is conceivable that this could have some relation to [New York City] heroin deaths ."

At the same conference an American pathologist, the late Dr. Rudolph J. Muelling of the University of Kentucky Medical School, added that a type of lung lesion similar to that found in Syndrome X deaths "is found to occur when one studies pure quinine cases. In the United States this kind of lesion has been found in several nurses attempting to induce abortions on themselves. They take the quinine orally and the condition comes on quite rapidly. The patients die of quinine alone."

[OneCentStamp]

Cluricaun and Zuul, shame on both of you. That's a clear case of biased reporting. You notice that neither of the studies mention the incidence of malaria among habitual intravenous heroin users, which I'm quite confident is close to zero.

[Cluricaun]

Cluricaun and Zuul, shame on both of you. That's a clear case of biased reporting. You notice that neither of the studies mention the incidence of malaria among habitual intravenous heroin users, which I'm quite confident is close to zero.

Ahem, from Zuul's link.

"Quinine was introduced as an adulterant of heroin sometime after 1939, when an epidemic of malaria spread by contaminated injection needles hit New York City addicts "

[OneCentStamp]

Ahem, from Zuul's link.

"Quinine was introduced as an adulterant of heroin sometime after 1939, when an epidemic of malaria spread by contaminated injection needles hit New York City addicts "

[Exy]

From reading what you guys quoted, it doesn't appear to me that these people are claiming that the majority of putative overdoses are actually quinine toxicity.

[ivan astikov]

From my understanding, the variability of the strength of the heroin is more a cause of death than the actual adulterants involved.

[Jaglavak]

Not to mention drop kicking one's immune system by injecting unsterilized water loaded with bugs, random chemicals, and pyrogens. That could kill you all by itself without help from any drugs.