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COMMENT: Educate the young and ban the drug

8:00am Thursday 18th March 2010 in


THOSE who advocate making the drug mephedrone illegal are offering a simplistic solution to what appears to be a growing problem among Britain’s young people.

The drug, also known as miaow miaow, is legal to possess but experts warn of the dangers of taking it.

It has been described as the “favourite new drug” among the nation’s clubbing generation but is thought to have contributed to the deaths of a number of young people, most recently two teenagers in Scunthorpe.

Normally sold as a plant fertiliser, mephedrone can have side effects including headaches, palpitations, nausea, high blood pressure, a burning throat, and nose bleeds.

There are growing calls to make the drug illegal but, while this would undoubtedly reduce the ease of its availability, we would question whether a ban alone will solve the problem.

Drugs such as heroin, cocaine and ecstasy are all widely available despite their illegal status.

If experts recommend adding mephedrone to the list of banned substances then this should happen as quickly as possible.

What is more important, however, is better education for our young people. Stopping teenagers from experimenting with alcohol, cigarettes or illegal drugs is virtually impossible. Rebellion and experimentation are natural instincts for the young.

But that does not mean we should not educate and inform our young people. The more they know, the more likely it is they will make informed choices.

Making mephedrone illegal may well be a step in the right direction but it is no silver bullet.

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Comments(11)

MrStJohns says...
8:17am Thu 18 Mar 10

Well for a start what even is the point in having an ‘independent’ drugs advisory council because they aren’t really allowed to disagree with the all knowing government. Secondly its our archaic drug policies that kill people in this country, making something illegal doesn’t stop it being available all it does is criminalise the person. We need to educate and have government backed control and distribution of drugs, so that quality, quantity etc are all monitored. Then people who make the choice to take a drug can be informed, educated etc Prohibition never works and if you need to see a reasonable drugs policy in action visit the Netherlands.

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pdsl says...
8:22am Thu 18 Mar 10

Methodone is a class B drug in Guernsey. being considered to make it class A. All the so called legal highs are banned, it's about time that the UK followed suit.

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MrStJohns says...
8:52am Thu 18 Mar 10

So what are you going to do ban everything that kills, cars, glue sniffing aerosol abuse etc ect. When is this country going to move away from being a nanny state of compensation culture! Its been proven prohibition never works, hence why we are in the mess we are in now over drugs policies. Educate people about drugs and educate them to exercise caution when taking any, if they still choose to. Some people will disregard this advice, but I guarantee it will have a higher success rate, than just banning everything, thus driving it underground creating a profitable industry for criminal gangs.

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Chips020 says...
9:24am Thu 18 Mar 10

MrStJohns wrote:
So what are you going to do ban everything that kills, cars, glue sniffing aerosol abuse etc ect. When is this country going to move away from being a nanny state of compensation culture! Its been proven prohibition never works, hence why we are in the mess we are in now over drugs policies. Educate people about drugs and educate them to exercise caution when taking any, if they still choose to. Some people will disregard this advice, but I guarantee it will have a higher success rate, than just banning everything, thus driving it underground creating a profitable industry for criminal gangs.
Your forgetting about tobacco, which is a drug, and the governments attempts to educate the masses about that. Tobacco slowly gives you lung cancer, the government has told people this but still they smoke, the fact is that people wont listen and so the only way to stop people from putting themselves and others at risk in this situation is have a tighter control on the production of these drugs.

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MrStJohns says...
9:34am Thu 18 Mar 10

Of course that’s the way forward, legislate producers and outlets for these drugs, fund research into them so people can be properly informed. Why should anyone listen?! Im certainly not going to stop having a cigarette or a drink if I want one, and why would the government be so naive as to think by banning something suddenly anyone would take any notice.
There’s not much point in commenting on the difference between alcohol and cigarettes and illegal drugs because there isn’t a difference. its just the government earns massive revenue from first the two. So they could easily do the same from the latter group. For instace marijuana was only criminalised because cotton producers where worried that Hemp would ruin the cotton industry, so therefore a campaign to criminalise it was born.

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anarchist says...
10:32am Thu 18 Mar 10

Well said MrStJohns - I am with you all the way.

When will people learn that all that banning things does is to create an illegal market for criminals to exploit. The cost of prohibition in the US is still being felt today as it effectively created the US mafia that still flourishes even now. In overall terms prohibition had a devastating negative impact on US society.

And, despite the enormous amount of UK police time spent on drug law enforcement, the street cost of drugs has continued to fall in the UK and the market is thriving. And, of course, as much as a half of all small scale criminality exists to fund people's drug habits.

It is a complete nonsense to keep banning things because people stupidly ingest them. Society depends on a huge number of chemicals, many of which are lethal if taken. If we banned everything that is harmful if taken we would be back in the Stone Age.

The only solution to the driugs problem is through education. I have lived for some years in the Netherlands and drug taking is less of a problem there than it is here because they consider educating younng people is a better approach than criminalising them.

Their teenage pregnancy numbers are much lower than ours for exactly the same reason - they see educating young people as far more effective than passing laws in countering what are social problems.

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JBLM2008 says...
12:10pm Thu 18 Mar 10

I agree with Mr St Johns totally by making something illegal will not stop any problem it will just push it under the carpet, if everything that could kill humans was banned we would get to a point where we couldn't purchase de-odourant for fear of substance abuse when will it end? People will choose what they want to choose if they listen to warnings then great if not you can't make them stop doing something if they really want to do it.

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Chips020 says...
12:28pm Thu 18 Mar 10

I would be in agreement if it weren't for the fact that there will always be drunks and druggies and those people are a danger to society, so something needs to be done and unfortunately they're not going to stop because they are told it bad for them. I'm not saying I know what should be done, I'm just saying that allowing people to do what they want is brilliant until they start interfering with other people. I have the right to walk down an alleyway and not get attacked by a druggie or drunk. Oh and I thought I might also mention that lot of money and hospital beds are being wasted on these people.

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MrStJohns says...
12:40pm Thu 18 Mar 10

I think you’d be surprised how many hospital beds are actually taken up by ‘druggies’ the numbers aren’t that great, when compared to how many alcohol related incidents take up hospital beds. Of course there will always be druggies and drunks, but I don’t agree they are all a danger to society, and you certainly don’t have to be a druggy or a drunk to be a danger to society totally sober people manage that everyday. You say you don’t know what the solution is, well one thing that is stopping a true and workable solution being reached is the constant knee jerk reaction of lets just ban it. Because that certainly doesn’t work and its been proven time and time again. Education and free choice does work. Even the decision makers haven’t got a clue, Mandelson openly admitted he had never heard of this drug, the reason being is that its just a chemical variant of drugs already available, and if you think banning it will help just wait until the next variant comes along. As Dr Nutt said ‘ you are better of taking ecstasy at least that’s fully researched’
Cheers for the nods of agreement as well, guys/girls its good to see that there are some clear thinking individuals out there, who have taken the time to educate them selves on this issue.

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Chips020 says...
2:15pm Thu 18 Mar 10

MrStJohns wrote:
I think you’d be surprised how many hospital beds are actually taken up by ‘druggies’ the numbers aren’t that great, when compared to how many alcohol related incidents take up hospital beds. Of course there will always be druggies and drunks, but I don’t agree they are all a danger to society, and you certainly don’t have to be a druggy or a drunk to be a danger to society totally sober people manage that everyday. You say you don’t know what the solution is, well one thing that is stopping a true and workable solution being reached is the constant knee jerk reaction of lets just ban it. Because that certainly doesn’t work and its been proven time and time again. Education and free choice does work. Even the decision makers haven’t got a clue, Mandelson openly admitted he had never heard of this drug, the reason being is that its just a chemical variant of drugs already available, and if you think banning it will help just wait until the next variant comes along. As Dr Nutt said ‘ you are better of taking ecstasy at least that’s fully researched’
Cheers for the nods of agreement as well, guys/girls its good to see that there are some clear thinking individuals out there, who have taken the time to educate them selves on this issue.
I think you seriously overestimate the human race...

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Ronnie6704 says...
1:24pm Wed 24 Mar 10

pdsl wrote:
Methodone is a class B drug in Guernsey. being considered to make it class A. All the so called legal highs are banned, it's about time that the UK followed suit.
I think you are getting a bit mixed up. Methadone is a heroin substitute, the article is talking about "mephedrone" otherwise known as "meow" or "m-cat." Methadone is a prescription drug therefore making it a class c drug. Mephedrone is of a similar substance to plant fertiliser giving highs similar to that of cocaine and ecstasy which is yet to be controlled by the Government within the UK.

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