Minister demands ban on Bubbles
Stefan Morkis and Philip Murray - Dundee Courier - 4th February 2010
The
Scottish Government has called for the Home Office to take action
to stop the spread of “legal highs” such as bubbles. Bubbles, also
known as mephedrone, is legal but has been linked with
the death of a 49-year-old woman in Dunfermline.Yesterday Arbroath Sheriff Court heard how a knife-wielding bubbles user threatened to gut a Montrose youngster “like a chicken.”
Last month a 21-year-old man from Montrose, who admitted breach of the peace and assault, told a court it took only three or four weeks for bubbles to ruin his life. He said that using the drugs, which he obtained by mail order from an online supplier, had led to him feeling suicidal.
A west Fife woman said she believed that bubbles contributed to the suicide of a family friend.
Now fears over the safety of bubbles and similar substances have prompted community safety minister Fergus Ewing to write to the Home Office, urging action to curb the increased popularity of so-called legal highs.
Only the Home Office has to power to ban substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act.
Mephedrone has not yet been made illegal and is readily available for purchase online, although it is illegal to sell the drug when it is clearly going to be used for human consumption.
However, no testing has been carried out on its medium and long-term effects on humans, or its effects when mixed with other substances such as alcohol.
Users claim it provides a similar effect as the illegal drug ecstasy, but several have reported symptoms such as vomiting, increased heart rates and depression after taking the drug. There have also been several cases of users collapsing.
The Home Office is awaiting a report from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, due in spring, before it decides whether to outlaw mephedrone, which was developed as a chemical to aid plant growth.
Rising fears of its spread across Scotland have prompted the Scottish Government raise concerns with Westminster.
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said, “The power to ban or reclassify drugs is reserved to the UK Government.
“However, the Minister for Community Safety is writing to the UK Government to make the Scottish Government’s representations on the growing use of synthetic cathinones, such as mephedrone, and the potential risks and harms associated with them.”
The increase in popularity of “legal highs” led the Scottish Government to extend drug awareness campaign Know the Score to include drugs like mephedrone.
It are also working with the Scottish Crime Drug Enforcement Agency and other groups to develop a collaborative approach to educate people about the drug.
Appearing from custody at Arbroath Sheriff Court yesterday, bubbles user Stephen Thomas Murray (18) admitted carrying a large kitchen knife in a Montrose street and threatening to use it on a 15-year-old boy.
The youngster was walking in Annat Road around the time of his lunch break on Tuesday when he and two friends came across Murray.
The court heard Murray, who lives in the road, hurled abuse at the trio before rushing into his home and grabbing a large kitchen knife.
His mother, who tried to stop him, heard him say, “There’s about to be a fight,” before Murray ran back into the street shouting at the boy that he was “going to slit him up and down like a chicken.”
He also made threatening cutting gestures with the blade. The youth ran off.
Defence agent Billy Rennie said his client had taken bubbles at around the time of the incident.
The so-called “safe” drug has become very popular in parts of Angus—helped in part by the fact it is legal and supposedly “non-addictive.”
However, a different picture was described in court yesterday.
Social worker Alison Hendry told Sheriff Norrie Stein, “Bubbles seems to be a problem in his life at the moment.
“He seems to be taking it to make himself feel better and more able to cope—he has a lot going on in his life.
“I’m looking for an urgent drug referral. He seems to be quite addicted to some of the bubbles, or whatever is in it. We would want this looked at.”
Adjourning the case until February 16, Sheriff Stein said, “This court is well aware of the concern that there is among staff and police around (the school) of the difficulties they are having there involving people who are no longer at the school.
“I’m also aware that you have committed a serious assault before, for which you were given community service.
“That order has been breached once and seems to be on the point of being breached again.
“The court has been told about your vulnerability and being bullied in the past.
“But the public interest is that a clear message should go out. You will be remanded while we gather reports.
“This will give you the opportunity to think about a number of things, including your bubbles use and alcohol, which you have been drinking from an early age.”
Bubbles - dangers of cheap high
in light of the controversy surrounding the “legal high” mephedrone, more commonly known in Tayside as bubbles, Courier reporter Stefan Morkis looks into the drug’s spread—and demonstrates just how easily available it has become.
When bubbles appeared on the Dundee drugs scene, it was rumoured it was a mixture of cocaine and ecstasy—two class A substances with a deadly reputation.
That was soon disproved but bubbles, otherwise known as mephedrone, soon earned a sinister reputation all of its own, despite being entirely legal and derived from plant food.
The legal high, which users say creates similar effects to ecstasy, has already been linked to the death of a 49-year-old Dunfermline woman.
There have been reports of users suffering a range of symptoms from sickness and vomiting, palpitations and discolouration of the nose or legs.
Long-term users have also reported suffering extreme bouts of depression, while those who choose to snort the drug can suffer severe nose bleeds as a result.
Mephedrone, which has the chemical formula 4-MMC, is known by a range of other names including plant food and mioaw mioaw, and is even known as Dundee in some parts of Angus because of its easy availability in the city.
It is illegal to knowingly sell the drug for human consumption, and this month an Arbroath man became the first person in Scotland to be charged with selling it.
Despite this, the drug is not only increasingly popular—it is increasingly easy to procure.
The drug is not only being sold in pubs and nightclubs by dealers. Anyone with a credit or debit card and access to the internet can quickly find a website where they can buy anything from half a gram, costing as little as £6, to half a kilo of bubbles, costing hundreds of pounds.
As long as sellers pretend they are not selling the drug for human consumption, they are not breaking any law.
This is why the drug is most often marketed online as “plant food” because mephedrone was originally created as a drug to promote plant growth.
It has never been tested on humans and no one has any idea what the long-term effects of abusing mephedrone may be.
However, while websites may feature the occasional picture of a plant and are careful to warn their products are not for human consumption, their intended market is clear.
The site I visited to buy my bubbles features a few pictures of happy-looking women alongside verdant house plants, but the images on the checkout page of dancers in a nightclub were more telling.
Other sites choose to be even less subtle and feature imagery of dancers and cartoons, making the link with club culture even more explicit.
The website also advises would-be buyers that any order will be delivered discreetly to their chosen address and, sure enough, 24 hours after placing my order, a nondescript white envelope dropped through the letterbox containing a gram of the fine, white powder.
But, for internet dealers, the good times selling mephedrone may soon be over.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs will report back to the Home Office in spring, when it is likely the UK will follow the lead of countries like Israel, Sweden and Norway in banning the drug.
But this may not be the end of the story.
The UK banned three legal highs last year but substitutes, which produce similar effects, soon became available.
As long as their chemical make-up is different—no matter how marginally— they can still be sold legally.
It’s likely 4-MMC will join ecstasy and cocaine on the list of banned substances quickly, but it’s equally likely a replacement will available almost as quickly.
See also:
Legal high crackdown set to fail, warn experts
Internet drug fear of 'legal highs' to buy online
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